


\ 




J 






i 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. Copyright No, 

Shelf M .08 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



i 



REV. DR. MILLER'S BOOKS. 



SILENT TIMES. 

MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE. 

THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE. 

THE BUILDING OF CHARACTER. 

THINGS TO LIVE FOR. 

THE STORY OF A BUSY LIFE. 

PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS. 

THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK. 

GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS. 

THE HIDDEN LIFE. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS. 



BOOKLETS. 



GIRLS; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
YOUNG MEN ; FAULTS AND IDEALS. 
SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE. 
THE BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS. 
A GENTLE HEART. 
BY THE STILL WATERS. 
THE MARRIAGE ALTAR. 
THE SECRET OF GLADNESS. 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 

NEW YORK AND BOSTON. 



THE 



JOY OF SERVICE 



/ 



BY 



J. R. MILLER, D.D. 



/ ran at His commands, 
and sang for joy of heart" 



New York : 46 East 14TH Street 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY 

Boston: ico Purchase Street 



The Library 
of Congress 

WASHINGTON 







Copyright, 1898, 
Bv Thomas Y. Crowell & Company. 




C J. PETERS & SON, TYPOGRAPHERS, 
EOSTON. 

-OS. 






These fragments of lessons may have their mission of 
helpfulness to some who are earnestly striving to grow 
into a braver, truer, richer-hearted life, and to become 
inspirers of others in their efforts and struggles. The 
author finds in these lines of Lowell's such an interpre- 
tation of his own feeling that he takes the liberty of 
quoting them on this page : — 

It may be glorious to write 

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three 
High souls, like those far stars that come in sight 

Once in a century ; 

But better far it is to speak 

One simple word, which now and then 
Shall waken their free nature in the weak 

And friendless sons of men ; 

To write some earnest verse or line, 

Which, seeking not the praise of art, 
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine 

In the untutored heart. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. The Joy of Service i 

II. The Duty of Joy 14 

III. Thunder, or Angel's Voice 26 

IV. Belonging to God 37 

V. Our Deposit with Christ 47 

VI. Christ's Deposit with Us 58 

VII. Ministries that Bless 68 

VIII. Mistaken Ministering 78 

IX. The Curse of Uselessness 88 

X. The Living God 100 

XI. The Increasing Christ 11 1 

XII. In Doubt and Perplexity 120 

XIII. A Problem of Living 132 

XIV. The Marks of Jesus 143 

XV. If Christ were Our Guest 153 

XVI. When Two Agree 163 

XVII. Lamps and Bushels 175 

v 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII. The Veiling of Lives 186 

XIX. The Making of Character 196 

XX. "Do Nothing Rashly" 206 

XXI. Talking of One's Ailments 214 

XXII. The Responsibility of Children .... 221 

XXIII. The Method of Grace 230 

XXIV. The Other Days 240 



THE JOY OF SERVICE 



CHAPTER I. 

THE JOY OF SEKVICE. 

Take joy home, 

And make a place in thy heart for her; 

And give her time to grow, and cherish her; 

Then will she come and sing to thee 

When thou art working in the furrow; ay, 

It is a comely fashion to be glad ; 

Joy is the grace we say to God. 

Jean Ingelow. 

There are many sources of joy. All men 
are in quest of happiness, and upon a thousand 
paths the shoeprints of the seekers are found. 
There is nothing available in all the world, 
nothing which holds the slightest promise or 
hope of happiness, that has not been tried 
by some one eager to find the magic secret. 

We are accustomed to say that the only 



2 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

true, deep, unfailing joy is that which we may 
find in God. The Bible has many promises 
of happiness, but they all point to spiritual 
and eternal sources. We read of the joy of 
the Lord, of rejoicing in God; Christ prom- 
ises his own joy to his followers. Joy, there- 
fore, is the inheritance of the Christian, — he 
has a right to claim it. Yet not all Chris- 
tians are happy. Many whose faith in Christ 
is unmistakable have joy only in the quiet 
lulls of life. They are easily disturbed. The 
song of to-day is choked with tears to-morrow. 
It is worth our while to try to find the 
secret of true and abiding Christian joy. We 
often hear it said that trust in God yields 
joy, or that a blameless life produces happi- 
ness. There is one kind of living, however, 
which more than any other contains the mas- 
ter secret of joy. It is a life of service. It 
begins in consecration to Christ : we must, 
first of all, be his servants. It includes trust, 
— reposing upon God. But there can be no 
continued quiet confidence if there be no ac- 
tivity in Christian life. Still water stagnates. 



THE JOY OF SERVICE. 3 

Even trust without action soon loses its rest- 
fulness. 

Work itself is always a helper of happiness. 
Indolence is never truly happy. The happiest 
man is the busy man. Even physical health 
depends largely upon regular occupation. No 
man, able for duty, who is not busy, can be 
truly or deeply happy. The idle man may be 
living a life of pleasure, but it is not a life of 
real happiness. Work is a condition of joy. 
It is a blessing that most people, when sorrow 
comes, dare not pause to indulge their grief. 
Their duties are waiting for them, waiting so 
clamorously that they cannot linger even for 
the tender sentiment of sorrow. There is 
scarcely time to wait for the funeral to be 
over, after a bereavement, before imperative 
tasks must receive attention. It is well that 
it is so. The necessary activity keeps the 
heart from breaking, and preserves the life 
from the morbidity which so often sorrow pro- 
duces when the hands lie folded. 

Work is therefore a secret of happiness. 
It saves the heart from being overcharged. 



4 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

The emotions which otherwise would lie pent 
up, to the hurt of the life, find vent and are 
wrought out in activities which bless others, 
while they produce health and wholesomeness 
in him who performs them. No worse mis- 
take can be made by one in grief than to 
drop life's duties and tasks out of the hands, 
and cut one's self off from the common duties 
and ministries of life. God's comfort is not 
found in this way. Joy comes not back to 
him who nourishes his sorrow in idle brood- 
ing; it is found only in the earnest and faith- 
ful doing of every duty. Work has saved 
many a life from despair in time of great 
grief. 

But there is something higher and diviner 
yet than even work alone. Work may be self- 
ish. It may be solely for the advancement 
of one's own interests, without any thought 
of another's benefit or comfort. Even then 
there is blessing in it ; for it fills the hands 
and occupies the thoughts — there is good in 
occupation itself. But if we add to work the 
element of serving, with love and thought of 



THE JOY OF SERVICE. 5 

others, we have one of the noblest of all the 
secrets of joy. 

Serving comes from loving ; it is love's ex- 
pression. Serving that is not inspired by love 
yields no joy. Love that does not serve is 
not love at all. The measure of self-denial 
that one is ready to suffer is the measure of 
the love that is in one's heart. Love that 
will not sacrifice is only a sentiment, a fair 
blossom from which no fruit comes. Love is 
ready always for serving. 

Wherever we see life in its best forms and 
developments, it has in it the element of ser- 
vice. In every glimpse of heavenly life shown 
to us in the Bible, we find service as the 
highest expression of the life's spirit. The 
angels who appear, coming and going between 
heaven and earth, are always engaged in ser- 
vice for some of God's children. Their mis- 
sion is described in one sentence : "Are they 
not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minis- 
ter for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" 
They come to earth expressly to serve. We 
know that the angels possess the secret of 



6 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

joy ; they are represented as praising God 
continually. It is the joy of service that fills 
their hearts. Never a thought of self poisons 
their pure gladness. 

The greatest and highest of all beings is 
God himself. His is the life which had no 
beginning, and shall have no ending. All other 
life — all angel life, all human life — flows from 
the one great fountain. Yet God lives not for 
himself. God is love, and the very essence 
of love is always service. He is ever giving 
out blessing and good to men. Every reveal- 
ing of God shows him to us as a God who 
serves his creatures. He thinks ever of their 
good. He works continually in providence, in 
most thoughtful, gentle serving. The highest 
reach of the divine serving was in the incar- 
nation, when God so loved the world that he 
gave his only begotten Son. 

Then, in the story of the life of Christ, 
where we have the revealing of the divine 
character in all its beauty, we find the most 
wonderful serving. Never did any other man 
live for his friends as Jesus lived for his. He 



THE JOY OF SERVICE. J 

kept nothing back from them. On the last 
night of his life, as if to express his love in 
a way that never could be forgotten, we see 
him clad as a servant, washing his disciples' 
feet. No picture of Jesus in all the Gospels 
is truer to the very heart of his life than 
this. He came not to be ministered unto, 
but to minister. He took on him the form 
of a servant, to show the divine spirit. A lit- 
tle later he actually gave his life in his match- 
less service of love. Thus this divinest of all 
ideals of life is seen serving even unto the 
uttermost. . 

We know that in this serving, Jesus found 
deep and holy joy. It used to be taught 
that he was a sad man. There was a tra- 
dition that he never smiled. But this con- 
ception of Jesus could not have been true. 
He was indeed a man of sorrows, but there 
was in his heart a deep joy which even his 
sorrows could not quench. He spoke dis- 
tinctly and repeatedly of his joy and of his 
peace. One of the New Testament writers 
tells us that it was for the joy set before 



8 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

him that he endured the cross, despising the 
shame. 

We can readily think of many sources in 
the joy of Christ. His fellowship with his 
Father was never broken, nor even most 
faintly shadowed for a moment. He was sin- 
less ; there was never in his heart the least 
trace of that sorrow which mars the sweet- 
est human joy, the consciousness of having 
done evil. His perfect faith made all spirit- 
ual things eternal realities to him, more real 
than the rocks and hills and trees and paths 
of earth. He never groped in the darkness 
of doubt and fear, as at times the holiest 
saints on earth must do when faith's vision 
grows dim. He saw the ultimate meaning of 
all sorrow, and looked to the end and final 
harvest of all sacrifice and loss. He was 
never discouraged ; he knew that his work 
would not fail. He had full confidence in 
the future of his ministry, and in the ulti- 
mate triumph of his kingdom. 

Yet it is evident that the richest of all 
the sources of the joy of Christ was in his 



THE JOY OF SERVICE, 9 

love and service. It was the joy of doing 
good, of giving comfort, of saving the lost, 
that meant the most to him. The travail of 
his soul was forgotten in the knowledge that 
a world would be redeemed by his blood. 

This joy of service Christ bequeathed also 
to his followers, — "that my joy may be in 
you." There are other sources, too, of Chris- 
tian joy, — forgiveness, childship in God's fam- 
ily, hope, divine fellowship ; but the joy that 
comes from serving is the purest and fullest 
of all. We have a hint of this in the Mas- 
ter's word, " It is more blessed to give than 
to receive. ,, This is a much deeper saying 
than we usually think it to be. There is 
much giving to us that is very wonderful. 
There are many and great spiritual blessings 
which come to us as gifts. Salvation is all 
of grace ; we earn nothing that we receive. 
We have the gift of pardon, of life, of the 
Holy Spirit, of the inheritance in glory ; but 
it is more blessed for us to give than to re- 
ceive even these divine gifts. The richest, 
truest, deepest, realest blessing that can come 



IO THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

to any heart is the blessing of giving, of do* 
ing, of suffering, of sacrificing for others, of 
serving them in love. 

The joy of service is therefore the sweetest, 
holiest joy possible. After the best happiness 
that can come through all other pure sources, 
human or divine, the joy that means the most 
to the heart and life is that which is found 
in loving and serving others in the name of 
Christ. 

Without this element no other joy is com- 
plete. God's best gifts to us would not make 
us deeply and securely happy, if we only re- 
ceived and enjoyed them, and did not become 
servants of others with them. Even commu- 
nion with God would fail to bring us true and 
abiding blessing, if we went not out from the 
holy presence on ministries of love to those 
who need. No blessing we keep for ourselves 
alone can give us deep and holy gladness. No 
vision of angels, no theophany, can produce 
such thrills of rapture in the heart as are en- 
joyed in some lowly service of love. 

There is a beautiful legend which tells that 



THE JOY OF SERVICE. II 

one shepherd was kept at home, watching a 
fevered guest, the night the angels came to 
Bethlehem with the announcement of the birth 
of Jesus, and sang their songs of joy. The 
other shepherds saw the heavenly host, heard 
their song, and beheld the glory. Returning 
home, their hearts were wondrously elated. 
But all the night Shemuel sat alone by the 
restless sufferer, and waited. His fellow-shep- 
herds pitied his deprivation, — that he missed 
the vision and the glory which they had seen. 
But in his lowly serving Shemuel had blessing 
and reward of his own. He missed, indeed, 
the splendor of that night in the fields, and in 
his serving he gave his own life ; but his eyes 
saw then a more wondrous glory than that 
which his fellow-shepherds had seen. 

" Shemuel, by the fever-bed, 
Touched by beckoning hands that led, 
Died and saw the Uncreated ; 
All his fellows lived, and waited." 

He had waited by the bed of sickness while 
they saw the glory; now they waited amid 
earth's dull scenes, while he witnessed the 



12 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

glory of the Eternal. So it is always in life 
in this world. Those who sit by fever-beds, 
and minister to human need in its countless 
forms, seem to miss much that is very beauti- 
ful. Their holy ministry keeps them away 
from places of honor, even from scenes of 
spiritual ecstasy. While at their common 
tasks they see not the angel hosts nor hear 
the music. Absorption in the duties of human 
love in the home, or among the poor, causes 
men and women to miss much that the world 
esteems. But meanwhile there is a higher re- 
ward, not only in store at the end, but even 
now, for those who serve. They enter more 
fully and deeply into the joy of the Lord ; and 
then, in heaven, they will be received into 
holier fellowship, closer to Christ. 

After all, only that life is worth living which 
has in it the spirit and quality of service and 
sacrifice. Dora Greenwell says, " I have often 
felt a significance in the fact that nothing be- 
longing to Christ's kingdom tells much upon 
the world which has not in it the element of 
sacrifice, and of Christlike willingness to par- 



THE JOY OF SERVICE. 1 3 

ticipate in pain. A righteous man may effect 
much good through beneficent deeds and wise 
and kind plans for the benefit of others ; but it 
is to the man for whom some, peradventure, 
would even dare to die, the man who himself, 
if need were, would die for men, that the 
hearts of men cleave." 

It is only life itself that is worth giving to 
others. That which we do for others or give 
to them, and which costs us nothing, has small 
blessing or help in it for them. A man may 
speak to us eloquently ; but if it is only words 
that he speaks, we are no richer for listening 
to them. Only when we serve in love, giving 
out life itself in our ministry, do we either find 
deep joy for our own heart, or make others 
truly happier or more blessed. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE DUTY OF JOY. 

Be like the bird that, halting in her flight, 

Awhile on boughs too slight, 
Feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, 

Knowing she hath wings. 

Victor Hugo. 

They are in the habit of saying in the East 
that in India the flowers yield no fragrance, 
the birds do not sing, and the women never 
smile. In a sense, it is almost literally true. 
Flowers, even of the richest hues, give out 
but little perfume ; birds of brightest plumage 
utter only piercing notes instead of sweet 
songs ; and the faces of the women are sad 
as they go about, enduring their sorrowful 
lot. All this is suggestive of the spiritual 
condition of a country where the gospel of 
Christ is not known. 

Christianity brings joy. The message of 

14 



THE DUTY OF JOY. 1 5 

the angel to the shepherds was, " I bring you 
good tidings of g*eat joy, which shall be to all 
people." Joy was born into the world that 
Christmas night when Jesus began his life on 
the earth. He came to bless men, to comfort 
sorrow, to open prisons, to lift the lost up to 
heaven. Jesus talked much about joy. He 
had a wondrous joy of his own. He was called 
a man of sorrows — never was there any other 
sorrow like unto his sorrow. Yet all the while 
there was in his heart a deep joy which noth- 
ing could disturb. Before he went away he 
bequeathed his joy to his disciples, and prayed 
that their joy might be full. 

Christians should have joy. But Christian 
joy is not happiness, as the world understands 
that word. Happiness is on the surface. It 
depends upon things that happen, and is easily 
disturbed. During a great battle the soldiers 
noticed, perched on a tree, a bird which sang 
whenever the roar of battle was hushed for a 
few moments. But when the terrific noise 
began again, the bird was silent. So it is with 
earthly happiness ; it sings in the brief pauses 



1 6 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

of life's struggles, but is silent while the strife 
goes on. 

Christian joy, however, is too deep to be af- 
fected by this world's occurrences. It is like 
those fresh-water springs beside the sea, over 
which the brackish tides pour, but whose wa- 
ters are sweet as ever when the tides recede. 
It is joy which the world can neither give nor 
take away. It lives in the heart under the bit- 
terest sorrows, and sings its songs in the dark- 
est nights. 

Joy is not merely a privilege which a Chris- 
tian may enjoy — it is also a duty. It is a 
fruit of the Spirit, and not a mere accident 
of temperament, or a mere index of experience. 
Christian life should always be victorious. We 
are to be more than conquerors through him 
that loved us. The experience told so exu- 
berantly in the following lines ought not to 
be impossible many days in any truly victo- 
rious life, — 

" Give me joy, give me joy, O my friends! 
For once in my life has a day 
Passed over my head and out of my sight, 
And my soul has naught to unsay. 



THE DUTY OF JOY. I? 

No querulous word to the fair little child 

Who drew me from study to play ; 
No fretful reply to the hundred and one 

Who questioned me, gravely and gay ; 
No word to the beggar I fain would take back, 

No word to the debtor at bay ; 
No angry retorts to those who misjudge, 

And desire not a nay, but a yea: 
No word, though I know I remember them all, 

Which I would, if I could, e'er unsay. 
Give me joy, give me joy, O my friends ! 

For the patience that lasted all day." 

Christians are to be light, and light is a 
symbol of joy. Gloom, therefore, in the life 
of any friend of the Master is a contradic- 
tion of Christlikeness. It is our duty to be 
cheerful, joyful, songful, whatever the circum- 
stances or experiences may be. We should 
never yield to discouragement, to depression, 
to disheartenment. If we let the darkness 
into our soul, it will darken our eyes, and mar 
the beauty of our life. Discouragement is 
dangerous. It robs a man of strength and 
skill, and makes him faint in the struggle. 
It chills his heart, takes the enthusiasm out 
of his life, and imperils all his career. One 



1 8 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

of the firm resolves of every man should be, 
never to be discouraged, since discouragement 
is defeat. 

Then we owe it to the world, also, to live 
a life of victorious joy. We are to be a bless- 
ing to others, and there is no other way in 
which we can do so much for those about us 
as by being habitually joyful. If we go about 
with sad words on our lips, disheartening 
words, we make it harder for others to live 
heroically and worthily. The influence of one 
depressed spirit on others cannot be estimated. 
Their burdens seem heavier, the road seems 
steeper to them, and the struggle seems 
sorer, because our hands hang down, the 
light fades from our eye, and our lips speak 
discouragingly. 

But if we go through life, singing happy 
songs as we go, songs of joy and gladness, 
they will become inspiration in the hearts of 
those who hear them. Men will grow braver, 
hope will come out of discouragement, and 
defeat will be changed to victory. Burdens 
will seem lighter, battles less fierce, and tasks 



THE DUTY OF JOY. 19 

easier, as the joyous notes of our songs ring 
out on the air. Ella Wheeler Wilcox writes, — 

" Smile upon the troubled pilgrims 

Whom you pass and meet ; 
Frowns are thorns, and smiles are blossoms, 

Oft, to weary feet. 
Do not make the way seem harder 

By a sullen face ; 
Smile a little, smile a little, 

Brighten up the place." 

We have no right to make life harder for 
others. It is a sin against humanity to do 
so. The law of love forbids it. He who 
makes it harder for a brother to live nobly, 
and do his work well, has sinned against one 
of Christ's little ones — therefore, against 
Christ himself. We dare not go about among 
our fellows saying discouraging things, dis- 
piriting things ; for, if we do, we are imperil- 
ling those whose burdens are already as heavy 
as they can bear. One discouraging word 
may cause them to sink down and perish. 

The law of love bids us bear one another's 
burdens, and there is no other way in which 



i 



20 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

we can do this so effectively as by living a 
life of victorious joy ourselves. He who goes 
among men throughout the day with glad 
heart and cheerful face, speaking to every 
one he meets some encouraging word, saying 
something uplifting in every ear, is a won- 
derful inspirer of strength, courage, and hope, 
in men. He is a divine minister of good to 
others. He makes every one a little braver 
and stronger. Weary plodders on the dusty 
way pluck up fresh energy after meeting him. 
Fainting ones awake to new courage when 
his hopeful words have fallen upon their ears. 
The influence of such a habitual encourager 
can never be measured. It is a noble thing 
to live thus. 

There are few lessons which are needed 
more than this teaching that joy is a duty. 
The mass of Christian people seem to pay no 
heed to it. There really are not many joy- 
ful Christians. It would seem as if a large 
number of them think there is a virtue in 
sadness and gloom. They make no attempt 
to live victoriously, but yield to every dis- 



THE DUTY OF JOY. 21 

couragement, and allow it to get into their 
heart. Even the little ills, which full-grown 
men should be ashamed to be affected by, 
they allow to master them. Even strong men 
are made wretched by a slight indisposition, 
by a little disappointment, or by hearing of 
some other's success. 

Then, what is worse, they not only let their 
own spirits be disturbed by these trivial inci- 
dents of pain or inconvenience, but they must 
needs make every one they meet share their 
miserable dispiriting. They carry the dark 
shadow of their unhappy feeling on their face. 
They chafe and fret when things do not go 
well. They pout and sulk like spoiled children 
when they do not get their own way. If they 
have not slept well, or if they have a headache, 
or a cold, or a discomfort of any kind, however 
trivial, they compel every one who salutes 
them courteously throughout the day to listen 
to the recital of all the tiresome story of their 
maladies. 

Could any habit be more utterly selfish than 
this ? Do persons imagine that the neighbors 



22 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

who inquire kindly after their health have any 
pleasure in listening to such an unwholesome 
tale of woe, often about nothing but some im- 
aginary ailment ? Does any one think that he 
has a right to pour such a burden of complain- 
ing into any human ear ? Every noble man is 
ready to extend sympathy in any case of real 
trouble ; but there is no call for sympathy in 
such ailments as make up the staple of the 
complaints which many of us have to tell our 
neighbors about. This is one of the human 
habits concerning which it were well if some 
power would " the giftie gie us to see oursel's 
as others see us." We only tire out our 
friends, and make it harder for them to live, 
while at the same time we add to our own 
wretchedness. For such miseries will grow if 
we nurse them, until by and by they become 
giants, and bind us hand and foot in hopeless 
bondage. 

Far better is it for one to seal his lips reso- 
lutely and persistently against all such morbid 
talk, and speak only glad, joyous, encouraging 
things. This is one of the childish things 



THE DUTY OF JOY. 2$ 

we should put away as we become men, if we 
find ourselves indulging in it. It is unmanly 
and it is most unlovely. It is a grievous sin 
against others to inflict upon them our miser- 
able hypochondrias. We should be scatterers 
of light, not of darkness ; of good, not of 
evil ; of inspiring influence, not of that which 
can only make life harder for every one we 
meet. 

Well would it be for us all if we learned the 
lesson that joy is a duty. God wants us to be 
happy ; and if we live as we should live, we 
shall be happy. This is not saying that we 
shall have no sorrow, or that life will be always 
easy and pleasant for us ; but we may at least 
be always overcomers. We have reason to re- 
joice, whatever our circumstances and our con- 
dition may be. There is an inner life, a life 
hid with Christ in God, which should be un- 
conquerable in a Christian, though all earthly 
things are swept away. There is a world be- 
yond this sphere, — a world where no storms 
beat, and where nothing hurtful ever shall 
come ; why should we be so affected by what 



24 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

takes place here, where we are staying but a 
little time ? 

Life is made up of habits. We ask God to 
help us to keep sweet and to live joyfully. He 
is ready to do it, but the way he would help us 
is in little lessons which we must learn for 
ourselves. He will never take out of our life 
all our miserable ways at one time, and put 
in place of them a full set of lovely ways, as 
one might change the works of a watch. That 
is not God's way of remaking us. We are 
scholars in Christ's school, and are to learn of 
him. No pupil can master an art or a science 
in a day : it takes months and years. We 
cannot learn in a day to live joyfully and vic- 
toriously ; but we can get a lesson to-day and 
another to-morrow, letting no day pass without 
its line. Meanwhile, God will help us continu- 
ally, encouraging every effort, permitting us to 
fail in no lesson. If only we are diligent and 
persistent, the most cheerless of us can at last 
so learn the habit of joy, that we shall fill our 
days with song. Susan Coolidge tells us how 
all such lessons are learned : — 



THE DUTY OF JOY. 2$ 

How does the soul grow ? Not all in a minute. 
Now it may lose ground, and now it may win it ; 
Now it resolves, and again the will faileth ; 
Now it rejoiceth, and now it bewaileth ; 
Now its hopes fructify, then they are blighted ; 
Now it walks sunnily, now gropes benighted, 
Fed by discouragements, taught by disaster. 
So it goes forward, now slower, now faster, 
Till, all the pain past, and failures made whole, 
It is full-grown, and the Lord rules the soul." 



CHAPTER III. 

THUNDER, OR ANGEIi'S VOICE. 

" Whither leads this pathway, little one ? " — 
"It runs just on and on, is never done." 

" Whither leads this pathway, mistress fair ? " — 
" That path to town, sir ; to the village square." 

" Whither leads this pathway, father old ? " — 
11 To the white quiet of the churchyard fold." 

Different persons continually give a differ- 
ent answer to the same question. Our eyes are 
alike, and yet no two persons see the same 
picture on the canvas. Our ears are con- 
structed on the same pattern, and yet no two 
hear the same song as they listen side by side 
to the singer. The world is not the same to 
any two persons. We carry within us a mys- 
terious power, which interprets to us whatever 
we see or hear of the sights and voices of 
the outside world ; and this power is distinct 

26 



THUNDER, OR ANGEVS VOICE. 2*J 

in each one. Thus it happens continually that 
the same voice falls upon the ears of two dif- 
ferent persons, and is altogether different to 
the two. Each hears what his own soul is 
prepared for hearing. 

We have an illustration of this in the story 
of Christ. One day a voice was heard in the 
temple. It was a divine voice speaking from 
heaven. The people standing about the Mas- 
ter heard it, and were strangely impressed by 
it. Yet they were not all impressed in the 
same way. Some thought it thundered ; the 
voice awed and terrified them. Others thought 
an angel had spoken. It was the same sound ; 
the difference was in those who heard it. The 
mood of their spirit gave tone to the voice. 

It is always so ; our own heart makes our 
world for us, and fills and peoples it, and 
the music we hear is modulated as it passes 
over the chords of our own soul. If you hold 
a smooth sea-shell to your ear, you hear a 
strange, murmuring sound, which we used to 
be told in childhood was a sort of reminis- 
cence of the ocean's roar. The fancy is that 



28 THE JOY OF SERVICE, 

the shell, having lain long amid the waves, 
the music of the sea has hidden in its magic 
chambers, and that this is what you hear 
when you hold the shell to your ear. 

This pretty fancy is dispelled, however, 
when you learn that, instead of the music of 
the ocean, the sound you hear is caused by 
the beating of your own heart, the throbbing 
of the blood in your fingers. Lay the shell on 
a table, and put your ear to it, and there is no 
music ; you hear the murmur only when you 
hold the shell in your hands. 

Many of the sounds which we hear, attrib- 
uting them to various sources, are but the 
noise of our own pulses ; and every sound that 
breaks upon our ear is modified at least by the 
mood or quality of our own inner life. When 
our heart is glad, the world is full of song. 
When our heart is sad, the world is full of tears. 

" In ourselves the sunshine dwells ; 
In ourselves the music swells ; 
Everywhere the heart awake 
Finds what pleasure it can make ; 
Everywhere the light and shade 
By the gazer's eye is made." 



THUNDER, OR ANGEVS VOICE. 29 

What men and women find in life depends 
on what they are themselves. We hear some 
people talk of the coldness of the world. They 
find no love anywhere, no gratitude, no appre- 
ciation, no sympathy, no tenderness. Others, 
living in like circumstances and conditions, 
find only brightness, beauty, gladness, and ten- 
derness wherever they go. The same skies 
are dull and leaden to one, and glorious with 
their deep, wonderful blue to another. The 
same fields are dreary and desolate to one 
eye, and filled with splendid beauty to another. 
The same people seem unsympathetic, uncon- 
genial, unneighborly to one, and to the other 
appear cordial, kindly, responsive, and unselfish. 

Each person's heart casts its own hue and 
tinge upon all other lives. Two listen to the 
same voice ; and while one hears what seems 
to him to be terrifying thunder, the other 
hears the entrancing strains of angels' songs. 

" Two men looked out from their prison bars — 
One saw the mud, the other the stars.' ' 

This same difference is seen in the way 
life's experiences appear to different persons. 



30 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

To one class everything seems discouraging. 
They see only the troubles, the difficulties, 
the hindrances, the disheartenments. They 
talk always in sad tone of their burdens, tasks, 
duties, disappointments, and trials. There is 
no sky in their picture, and no stars shine 
down upon them. Then there are others who 
always look upon life optimistically. They 
are never discouraged. They are not dis- 
turbed by the perplexing things which they 
meet. They expect to have struggles ; since 
with only easy life there can be no progress, 
no victories, no struggling upward, and they 
grow only the braver and more resolute in 
battle. They meet obstacles and hindrances ; 
but they are not disheartened by them, and 
turn them into stepping-stones for upward 
striving. They suffer defeats and reverses ; 
but they are not dismayed, only learning 
from their failures how to keep from being 
defeated again. Everywhere they go they 
hear music, and everywhere they find some- 
thing beautiful and good. Emerson puts it 
well : — 



THUNDER, OR ANGEL'S VOICE. 3 1 

Let me go where'er I will, 

I hear a sky-born music still ; 

It sounds from all things old, 

It sounds from all things young ; 

From all that's fair, from all that's foul, 

Peals out a cheerful song. 

It is not only in the rose, 

It is not only in the bird, 

Not only where the rainbow glows, 

Nor in the song of woman heard, 

But in the darkest, meanest things 

There alway, alway something sings. 

'Tis not in the high stars alone, 

Nor in the cups of budding flowers, 

Nor in the redbreast's mellow tone, 

Nor in the bow that smiles in showers. 

But in the mud and scum of things 

There alway, alway something sings. 

All will admit that the man with the optimis- 
tic spirit gets far more out of life, and makes 
far more of life, than his pessimistic neighbor. 
It is a great deal better to see blue sky and 
stars than only dull, leaden clouds. It is a 
more noble thing to hear angel music than 
thunder in the voices that break on our ears. 

Happiness or unhappiness is, therefore, not 
so much a matter of condition as of heart. 
We gather in life what our habit of heart has 



32 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

fitted us for gathering. One bird, when it 
finds itself imprisoned in a cage, begins to 
struggle, trying to escape, flying wildly against 
the wires ; but it only bruises its breast and 
wings in its unavailing efforts. Another bird, 
when caged, cheerfully accepts the inevitable, 
and fills all the place with sweet songs.' The 
canary is wiser than the starling. It is both 
good philosophy and good religion to make the 
best of one's condition. 

There is something sacred about that which 
is inevitable. When we find ourselves in hard 
or painful conditions, which are clearly provi- 
dential, over which we have no power, we must 
conclude that, for the time, these conditions 
represent the will of God for us. This should 
help us to accept them, not sullenly, but joy- 
ously. Instead of the voice of thunder in 
them, we should hear angels' songs. 

It is not enough, however, merely to state 
the law, that our own heart gives the quality 
to the music that breaks on our ears. The 
fact that one has a temperament which sees 
everything hopelessly, in shadow, is not to be 



THUNDER, OR ANGEL'S VOICE. 33 

regarded as a final, unchangeable fact. We 
are not to say in excuse for our gloomy way 
of looking at things that we were made thus, 
and cannot remake ourselves. 

In the first place, we were not made thus, 
but, following a trend of tendency in our 
nature, have fallen into the miserable habit of 
weakly yielding to discouragement. Then, 
even if we had been made thus, with melan- 
choly temperament, that would be no reason 
for our continuing unto the end of life in this 
unhappy state. Our business is to grow into 
the likeness of Christ, and he never let him- 
self become subject to unhappy moods. He 
always found the beautiful things. He always 
heard songs of angels, or the voice of God, 
even when others heard only the sound of 
thunder. He saw the flowers where others 
saw only the thorns. He saw the stars where 
those about him saw only muddy roads. He 
found hope where others found only despair. 

We should seek to be like Christ in his won- 
derful optimism. If we find ourselves turning 
every sight and sound of earth into sadness, we 



34 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

should take ourselves resolutely in hand. We 
are living wastefully, sinfully, while we submit 
to such moods ; and we should set ourselves to 
work to change the miserable trend and habit 
into something more beautiful and wholesome. 
Part of the work of Christ in us is to transform 
us into songful, cheerful, rejoicing Christians. 
St. Paul learned during his long life, in whatso- 
ever state he was, therein to be content. He 
carried the secret in his own heart, so that he 
was not dependent on this world's weather for 
the temperature of his inner life. 

" Always keep sweet, and go on singing," 
is a good motto. Easy, do you say ? Only a 
lesson for children ? Do you think so ? Did 
you ever try to live it out for a week, even 
for a day ? The perfection of Christian liv- 
ing is included in this motto. He who has 
learned to live by this rule has reached a high 
attainment. Yet it is thus we are to seek to 
live continually. We should overcome our mor- 
bidity, our unwholesomeness of temperament, 
and should train ourselves to see beauty in all 
things, and good in every experience. 



THUNDER, OR ANGEVS VOICE. 35 

In order to do this we must have the beauty 
and the good in ourselves. "You must have 
the bird in your heart before you can find 
the bird in the bush." So we must have 
bird-songs in our soul, or we cannot hear bird- 
songs in the groves. Mr. Burroughs tells of 
a woman who asked a bird-lover where she 
could hear the bluebird. "What, never heard 
the bluebird ! " said he. " Then you never will 
hear it." He could have taken her in a few 
minutes where a bluebird's song or warble 
would fall upon her ears, but there was no 
capacity in her ears to hear it. They were 
not sensitized by love for birds. It requires 
a special organ, as it were, a power either 
given in creation, or acquired by long train- 
ing, to hear the voices of nature. 

So it is with other things. An earthly 
mind cannot hear heavenly voices. An un- 
spiritual person finds no beauty in the Bible. 
Spiritual things can be only spiritually dis- 
cerned. We must have the peace of God in 
our bosom ; and then, and then only, we shall 
find the peace of God in all things, even in 



36 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

life's wildest storms. We must have the joy 
of Christ within us ; and then, and only then, 
all earth's noises, even its roaring thunder, will 
make music of angel voices in our ears. 

We cannot change the world, taking out all 
its thorns, making its tasks easy and its bur- 
dens light, modulating all its discords into har- 
monies, transforming its ugliness into beauty; 
but we can have our own hearts renewed by 
the grace of God, and thus the world will be 
made over for us. A new heart makes all 
things new. A heart of love will find love 
everywhere. A soul full of song will find 
sweet music everywhere. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BELONGING TO GOD. 

Our wills are ours, we know not how; 
Our wills are ours, to make them thine. 

Tennyson. 

What matters happiness? 
Duty ! There's man's one moment : 

This is yours. Browning. 

It is a great thing to have God for master, 
and to own it. The trouble with too many of 
us is, we try to be our own master. We make 
sorry work of it, too, whenever we take into our 
own hands the direction of our life. There is 
only one safe place to leave it — in the hands 
of God. 

St. Paul packs into one terse sentence a 
whole volume of practical teaching when he 
says, " Ye are not your own ; ye are bought 
with a price : therefore glorify God." It is not 
easy for us with our proud human nature to 

37 



38 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

confess that we really are not our own. We 
like to feel that we are independent beings. 
We are loath to call any one master. Many 
of us resent even God's claim to ownership 
in us, and deny his right to command us. 

But the first principle of true religion de- 
clares that we belong to God, that his right 
over us is absolute. It is nothing unreasona- 
ble, either, that is thus required of us. We 
rightfully belong to God. The authority he 
claims over us is not arbitrary nor assumed. 
He made us, and has the Creator's right over 
us, his creatures. He is our Father; and as his 
children we owe him all homage, obedience, 
submission, and love. Then, he is our Lord 
and King ; and we ought to recognize his au- 
thority, and without question submit ourselves 
to him, bringing every thought, feeling, dispo- 
sition, and affection into subjection to him. 

But there is a higher ground on which this 
ownership rests. " Ye are bought with a price." 
We know well what this price was. We need 
to think much of the cost of the blessings we 
enjoy as Christians. It will make them far 



BELONGING TO GOD. 39 

more sacred when we remember tnat it was 
through the humiliation, sorrow, and death of 
our Redeemer that the blessings of faith be- 
came ours. A nation's flag is dear, not merely 
because of the pieces of cloth that compose it, 
but because it represents, not only all that the 
nation stands for, but has written into it all 
the story of the nation's life. 

"Did worth not find its symbol in the flag, 
'Twould only be a gaudy, sorry rag; 
But while high sentiments our people hold, 
We need not blush to greet each beauteous fold." 

So in the symbols of Christianity are folded 
up for us all that Christianity means to the 
world and to our own heart. 

There are things which can be bought with 
money, but there also are things which money 
cannot purchase. With money a man may 
build a house, and adorn and furnish it ; but 
money will not buy home happiness, and the 
sweetness, comfort, and refinement which make 
true home life. With money we may purchase 
bread and raiment, coal for the fire, and lux- 
uries for physical enjoyment; but money will 



40 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

not acquire fine character, moral beauty, a gen- 
tle spirit, peace in the heart, or any of the 
elements which make up a noble personality. 
Money ransomed many a slave from captivity 
in ancient times, but human redemption was 
not obtained at any money price. The Son of 
God gave his life a ransom for souls. Thus 
our belonging to God is confirmed and sealed 
by the holiest sanctions. 

Yet, while the authority of God over us and 
his right to us are unquestioned, the relation 
is one that, as moral beings, we must each vol- 
untarily accept and acknowledge. God never 
compels us to be his. We are sovereigns over 
our own life ; this is part of the likeness of 
God in us. We can do as we will. We can 
resist even God's authority. Our puny will 
can shut omnipotence out of our life. We can 
proudly say, " Our lips are our own ; who is 
lord over us ?" 

The truth that we are not our own must be 
acknowledged by ourselves. We must make 
our life God's by an act of personal devote- 
ment. The mere acknowledgment of the fact 



BELONGING TO GOD, 4 1 

that we belong to God is not enough — there 
must be a transaction, a surrender, a giving of 
the keys of our life over into the hands of God 
out of our own hands. No one can make this 
devotement for us. No mother can make her 
child God's. She may dedicate it to him in 
its infancy, and bring it up for him along the 
years ; but the child is not truly God's until 
for itself it makes the personal devotement. 

It is with this great act that a Christian life 
really begins. What we call faith in Christ is 
nothing less than a committal of our whole life 
to Christ. It is related of Wendell Phillips 
that, when in the valley of shadows, he was 
asked by a friend who sat beside him, " Did 
you ever make a personal consecration of 
yourself to God?" The great man answered: 
" Yes ; when I was a boy fourteen years of 
age I heard Lyman Beecher preach on the 
theme, 'You belong to God.' I went home 
after hearing that sermon, threw myself on 
the floor of my room, with the door locked, 
and said : ' God, I belong to you ; take what 
is thine own. I ask but this, that whenever 



42 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

a thing be right it take no courage to do it, 
that whenever a thing be wrong it may have 
no power of temptation over me,' " 

A like confession of God's right over him 
every one of us must make if he would put him- 
self in right relations with God. Our will is 
our own, and it is ours to make it God's. No 
one can do it for us, and God will never take 
it until we freely give it him. Jesus Christ is 
our rightful king, and is worthy to receive all 
homage, love, and obedience ; and we cannot 
be right until we have confessed that we are 
his, and have begun to live a life of obedience. 

"Therefore glorify God." That is what we 
must do with the life which belongs to God, and 
which he recommits to us. How can we aug- 
ment God's glory ? We cannot add a single 
beam to the splendor of the noonday sun ; we 
cannot make the evening star more brilliant ; 
and God's name is infinitely beyond our poor 
glorifying. Yet we may honor God among men. 
You travel abroad, and meet in a foreign land 
a man who is noble, gifted, and worthy. Here 
at home he is not known at all, or at the best 



BELONGING TO GOD. 43 

his name is known only vaguely and by a very 
few. You return home, and begin at once to 
speak of this man to your friends, telling them 
of his life, his work, his charming personality. 
You pass among your friends the books he has 
written, which contain his helpful, inspiring 
words. His name is now no longer unknown 
in your community, but becomes familiar to 
many people. His influence begins to be felt 
in many lives. His books are read, and do 
good. You have glorified him. 

In the same way we may make God glorious. 
We know his name, his character, his works, 
and we have his word, which is full of divine 
revealings. We can speak of his mercy, love, 
and goodness. We can tell what we know of 
him, what he has been to us, and has done for 
us. We can show others the words he has 
spoken, full of comfort, inspiration, and cheer. 
Where God was scarcely known before, he be- 
comes well known, and many begin to love him 
and trust him. We have glorified God. 

Not only by telling others of God may we 
glorify him, but also in our own life. Being 



44 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

is more than speaking. In the Palazzo Ros- 
piglioso, in Rome, is the great picture of the 
Aurora. It is on the ceiling, and can be 
studied only with much difficulty from the 
floor. But a mirror is so placed on a table 
that it reflects the picture, and one can study 
it there with ease and pleasure. 

God is a spirit ; and he is in heaven, dwell- 
ing in light unapproachable. The incarnation 
was the bringing of the reflection of the glori- 
ous person of God down to earth in a human 
life. Men looked at Jesus, and saw in him the 
very image of God. 

Jesus is no longer here in the flesh to reveal 
the unseen God ; but we are here for him, and 
it is ours, if we are truly Christians, to be 
mirrors, reflecting in our own character the 
beauty of the Lord, and thus glorifying him. 
It is of the utmost importance that those who 
look into the mirror of our life may see a true 
and faithful revealing of God. How else shall 
they learn what God is like? It would be a 
sad thing if we should misrepresent him, giving 
to any one a wrong thought of his character. 



BELONGING TO GOD. 45 

A little child one day, after reading in the 
New Testament, asked her mother, " Is Jesus 
like anybody we know ? " The child was eager 
to discover just what were the elements of the 
character of Christ, his disposition, his spirit, 
the mind that was in him. The mother ought 
to have been able to answer, " Yes, I am trying 
to be like Jesus ; if you will look at my life 
and study my character, you will see a little of 
what Jesus is like." Every follower of Christ 
should be able to say the same to all who know 
him. The likeness is imperfect, for in many 
things we come short ; but, if we are true 
Christians, we must be trying to live as he 
would if he were in our place. Unless we live 
thus, we are not glorifying God. 

But doing is important as well as being. 
Jesus glorified God by a life of divine love 
among men. At every step he wrought deeds 
of mercy. There is a legend which says that, 
as he walked away from his grave, sweet flowers 
grew in his path. It was really so in every 
path on which those blessed feet trod ; flowers 
of kindness blossomed wherever he went. He 



46 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

did the works of his Father, and thus glorified 
him. If we belong to God, we must glorify 
him in the same way ; we must continue the 
ministry of love which our Master began. It 
is the divine will that we carry blessing and 
help to every one we meet. If we fail to be 
loving, we disappoint God. 



CHAPTER V. 

OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST. 

" Wearily my spirit sinketh 

Into Jesus' heart and hands, 
Calmly trusting, though the journey 

Lie through strange, untrodden lands. 
All my spirit is at rest 
On the loving Father's breast." 

In one of his epistles St. Paul tells us of 
a trust which he had committed to Christ. 
Speaking of him with whom he had made 
this deposit, he says he knows him whom he 
has trusted. Christ was no stranger to him, 
no untried friend. He could not have trusted 
him with such tremendous interests if he had 
not known him. Very foolish is the young 
person who puts confidence in a stranger, ad- 
mitting him to the place of a friend. She 
would be a very careless, thoughtless mother 
who would commit the keeping of her child 

47 



48 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

to a nurse concerning whose character she 
had not thoroughly satisfied herself. Men who 
are prudent will not invest money in an insti- 
tution which they do not reasonably believe to 
be safe. If you were going to cross the sea, 
you would want to be well assured of the 
stanchness and seaworthiness of the ship to 
which you commit your life. 

St. Paul knew him whom he had trusted as 
his Saviour. Some people know a great deal 
about Christ, yet do not know him. You may 
read or hear much concerning a man while 
you have never seen him. But one day you 
meet this man, and he becomes your friend. 
That is the way St. Paul knew Christ, — "I 
know him." It was no hearsay knowledge on 
which he based his confidence. 

There are some people whom the better we 
know the less we trust. Acquaintance reveals 
faults and flaws in their character. We find 
they are not trustworthy, cannot be depended 
on. Their friendship is inconstant, fickle, un- 
certain. When we know them well we learn 
that we would better not commit ourselves to 



OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST. 49 

them. We read that on one occasion Jesus 
did not commit himself to certain people be- 
cause he knew what was in men ; he knew 
he could not trust himself in their hands, that 
they would not prove true to him. This is the 
outcome of acquaintance in too many cases — 
we may not safely intrust our interests to 
men's keeping. 

Others there are whom the better we know 
the more implicitly we trust. We find them 
faithful and true in every feeling, in every 
word, in every act. They never disappoint 
us, nor fail us, nor harm us. Every thought 
of their heart is loyal. They would make 
any sacrifice for our sake. Such a friend is 
Christ. 

If you are travelling in a strange land, you 
may feel a little uncertain at first about your 
guide, not having tried him before ; but as 
you go on, and he shows familiarity with the 
way and ability to conduct you on your jour- 
ney, you learn to trust him, and at length all 
fear gives way to complete confidence. So it 
is that trust in Christ grows as we go on with 



50 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

him, and find him always faithful and wise. 
He never disappoints us. In all experiences 
of need or trial he proves his love. Some- 
times he denies us what we ask, but we always 
learn in the end that he was right. Thus it 
is that we learn to know Christ — by trying 
and trusting him. 

St. Paul then tells us that he has placed a 
sacred deposit in the hands of Christ, and 
that he knows it is absolutely secure. "I am 
persuaded that he is able to guard that which 
I have committed unto him against that day." 
The figure is of a deposit one would make in 
trusted keeping, as of rare and costly jewels 
which the owner might put into the hands of 
one who would safely guard them, delivering 
them up in due time. 

What was it that St. Paul had thus depos- 
ited with Christ ? For one thing, it was his 
soul. It was a guilty soul when the young 
rabbi first met Christ ; he had been openly 
fighting against Jesus. It was a hurt soul ; 
he had wounded himself in his resistance. 
That guilty, hurt soul he had committed to 



OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST 5 1 

the keeping of Christ ; and he was sure Christ 
would guard it sacredly, and save it unto life 
eternal. Paul never worried about his own 
salvation after making this committal. He 
knew that all was safe in Christ's hands, and 
he then gave up his life to the service of 
Christ. 

No one but Christ can keep our soul. There 
are no other hands in which we may place this 
sacred deposit. No gentlest, purest, wisest 
mother can take charge of her own child's 
soul. She cannot cleanse its heart of evil dis- 
positions and tendencies. She cannot keep it 
from the power of evil, and shelter it from 
temptation. She cannot put upon its nature 
Christ's likeness. She may care for its body, 
and train its mind, but she cannot save and 
keep its soul. Only Christ can do this. 

There is a wonderful verse in the little let- 
ter of Jude, which reads : " Unto him that is 
able to guard you from stumbling, and to set 
you before the presence of his glory without 
blemish in exceeding joy ... be glory and 
majesty, dominion and power." That which he 



52 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

is able to do is to guard us from stumbling 
on our way through this world, and at the 
end present us without blemish before God. 
The same confidence is in St. Paul's words : 
"He is able to guard that which I have com- 
mitted unto him against that day." This keep- 
ing is no easy task. There are a thousand 
things that may hurt a life. Evil lurks in 
sunshine and shadow, in joy and sorrow, in 
pleasure and pain, in success and failure, 
in health and sickness, in companionship and 
loneliness, in prosperity and adversity. 

An hour's association with one not good 
may leave in a soul a suggestion of evil which 
shall work the life's utter ruin in the end. A 
happy home by its very happiness may be- 
come the enemy of the spiritual life, drawing 
thought, love, and devotion from God and from 
the higher things of God's service to things 
lower and earthly. Business success may lead 
to moral failure ; or, on the other hand, fail- 
ure in business may dishearten and break the 
spirit. A time of sickness may breed discon- 
tent and fretfulness. Invalidism may make 



OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST. 53 

one selfish and exacting ; or unbroken health 
may weaken the sense of dependence on God, 
or may rob the heart of patient sympathy, 
making one harsh and ungentle towards others 
in their infirmities. Too much companionship 
or too great absorption in work may interfere 
with the soul's communion with God ; or too 
much aloneness may make one's life morbid, 
unwholesome, self-absorbed, and out of sym- 
pathy with others. 

These are suggestions of the possible evils 
that lurk in the common experiences of even 
the most sheltered life. This is not an easy 
world to live in and in which to keep one's 
self unspotted. It is not easy amid such an- 
tagonisms to grow into Christly beauty. One 
who has sincerely tried to keep himself pure, 
loving, gentle, unselfish, rich-hearted in all 
sympathy and helpfulness, generous, patient, 
true, and sweet in all ways, even for one little 
day, knows that it is no easy task. But that 
is what Christ is able to do for us, — to guard 
that which we have committed to him until 
the day of final revealing. 



54 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

In another burst of confidence, just before 
his martyrdom, St. Paul used these remarkable 
words : " The Lord shall deliver me from every 
evil work, and will preserve me unto his heav- 
enly kingdom. " He was in Nero's hands, and 
soon would die ; but his deposit was still safe, 
and would be guarded until it should be pre- 
sented in glory. 

Our affairs are also a part of this deposit. 
We soon learn that we cannot be master of 
our own condition and circumstances. We 
cannot make our environment helpful to our 
spiritual growth. We cannot bring good out 
of evil, blessing out of pain, victory out of 
defeat. Take the story of Joseph as an ex- 
ample. Wrong and cruelty seemed to be 
utterly destroying his young life in its early 
years. But the strange, tangled experiences 
were in the hands of God, and out of them 
all came in due time great blessing for Joseph 
and for the world. To have broken into that 
story with human interference at any point, in 
those days of trial, would have been to spoil 
the outworking of a beautiful divine plan. 



OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST 55 

" Because I was impatient, would not wait, 
But thrust my impious hands across thy threads, 
And marred the pattern drawn out for my life — 
O Lord, I do repent." 

There is a special phase of the lesson which 
emerges at this point. You are suffering wrong 
from others. They are unkind to you, unjust, 
treating you injuriously. What is your duty 
as a Christian in this case ? Is it not the 
quiet committal of all the hurts and wrongs 
into Christ's hands ? You are not a judge ; 
you have nothing whatever to do with judg- 
ment. Your whole duty is to put the matter 
absolutely and forever out of your own hands 
into Christ's, and to leave it there. It is not 
your province to set wrong things right, to 
vindicate yourself from false blame, to avenge 
injustice or injury inflicted upon you. 

In another passage of the Scriptures we are 
told what Jesus himself did with the wrongs 
he suffered : " Who, when he was reviled, re- 
viled not again ; when he suffered, threatened 
not ; but committed himself to him that judg- 
eth righteously." We have also this counsel : 



56 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

" Wherefore let them that suffer according to 
the will of God commit their souls in well 
doing unto a faithful Creator." 

How simple this teaching makes all life if 
only we learn the lesson ! Our soul's salva- 
tion, the keeping of our life in the midst of 
this world's dangers and enmities, the out- 
working of all experiences, the direction of 
our affairs, the adjustment of all wrongs and 
inequities, the overruling of all evil, so as to 
bring us home at last to glory without blem- 
ish, — all this is to be committed to Christ, 
left absolutely, without question, doubt, or fear, 
in his strong and skilful hands. Our one duty 
is always to do God's will as it is made known 
to us, and then leave all the tangles with 
Christ. In one of the Psalms the lesson is 
put very clearly : — 

" Commit thy way unto the Lord; 

Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. 

And he shall make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, 

And thy judgment as the noon-day. 

Then, St. Paul's words of confidence and as- 
surance come in again with wondrous strength- 



OUR DEPOSIT WITH CHRIST 57 

ening for our hearts : " I know him whom I 
have believed, and I am persuaded that he is 
able to guard that which I have committed 
unto him against that day." Thus assured, 
faith can sing : — 

" I will not doubt, though all my ships at sea 
Come drifting home with broken masts and sails; 
I will believe the Hand which never fails 
From seeming evil worketh good for me: 
And though I weep because those sails are tattered 3 
Still will I cry, while my best hopes lie shattered, 
< I trust in thee.'" 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US, 

" What wouldst thou have me do, Lord ? 
Each morn and eve we seem to say, 
And he gives back no doubtful word: 
' Remember, little child, all day, 
Thine early vows, the hallow'd wave 
Where Jesus first his blessing gave : 
There stoop, there cleanse thee every hour ; 
Christ's laver hath refreshing power.' " 

Christian faith is the committing of the 
life into the hands of Christ. It is spoken of 
in the Scriptures as the depositing of all life's 
interests with one who is surely able to keep 
them safely until the day of final revealing. 
The thought is very beautiful. Our life is hid 
with Christ in God. 

Then, there is something else to correspond 
with this. There is another deposit. Christ 
commits something to us, something which we 
are to keep and care for and use, bringing it 

58 






CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US. 59 

home and restoring it to him at last unblem- 
ished, unwasted. In one of St. Paul's letters 
to Timothy we have an illustration : " Hold 
the pattern of sound words which thou hast 
heard from me, in faith and love which is in 
Christ Jesus. That good thing which was 
committed unto thee guard through the Holy 
Ghost. " Timothy was a young minister; and 
St. Paul, who was his spiritual father, and had 
taught him the truths of the gospel, is exhort- 
ing him to be careful and faithful in his holy 
trust. 

The preacher's work is very sacred. What 
if he should not deliver his message correctly ? 
In transmitting a telegraphic despatch the op- 
erator made a mistake, left out just one little 
word. But the omission of that word changed 
the sense of the whole message. A large busi- 
ness transaction was involved, and great finan- 
cial loss resulted. The company receiving and 
transmitting the telegram was held responsible 
for the consequences of the mistake. 

The preacher stands between God and hu- 
man souls. If in delivering God's message he 



60 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

makes mistakes, leaving out words, or insert- 
ing words of his own, or putting the emphasis 
in the wrong place, thus changing the mean- 
ing of the message, who can tell what the 
consequences may be ? It is of vital impor- 
tance that the preacher should hold the pat- 
tern of sound words which he has received. 

An edition of the Bible was once printed ; 
and when it was ready to be distributed it was 
discovered that the word " not " had been left 
out of one of the Ten Commandments. The 
edition had to be suppressed and destroyed. 
Like care has not been exercised always by 
those who have undertaken to interpret the 
words of God to man. Sometimes they have 
left out words, or added words, not giving 
their message as God delivered it to them. 

Men hang on the preacher's utterances to 
learn how to live, so as not to fail of eternal 
life. But suppose that the teaching is wrong 
— what will the consequences be ? The min- 
ister's half-hour on Sunday before a listening 
people is a holy time. Not a moment of it 
should ever be wasted. Not a word should 



CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US. 6 1 

ever be spoken which is not after the pattern 
of sound words which God has given. A 
wrong interpretation may start a soul on a 
course of fatal error. 

A Christian woman has told how all her 
life has been shadowed by the effects of the 
preaching she heard in her girlhood. Only 
the sterner phases of truth were preached — 
God's justice and terribleness. So she was 
made to dread God. His name meant terror 
to her. No thought of love found a place in 
the conception of the Deity which the preach- 
ing of those years left on her mind. Later, 
the truth of God's Fatherhood, with all that 
fatherhood, interpreted by the life, teachings, 
and death of Jesus Christ, means, was brought 
to her ; but the early teaching had so wrought 
itself into the very fibre of her life, into all 
her thoughts, feelings, and motives, that its 
effect never has been altogether neutralized. 
Her life still suffers from the mistaken teach- 
ings of her girlhood years. 

Countless lives have been hurt or marred by 
unfaithful or mistaken handling of truth in 



62 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

those who were truth's ordained guardians. 
The teacher of the young comes under the 
same responsibility. The writer of books, to 
whom the gift of composition is intrusted, is 
charged with a sacred duty in this regard. 
There is no distinction of moral and secular 
in the matter of authorship. It is just as im- 
portant that the novelist, the romancer, and 
the poet shall follow the pattern of sound 
words, as that the writer of books of devotion 
or religious instruction shall do it. This puts 
a most serious responsibility upon every one 
who can write what people will read. Many 
a popular story has carried in its pages per- 
versions of truth, misinterpretations, errors, 
insidious scoffs or sneers, which have marred 
lives and wrecked destinies. 

It is a serious thing to give a traveller who 
asks the way a careless or mistaken direction 
by which he is led out of his course, perhaps 
to his own great loss or disadvantage. It is 
a serious thing to give unwise advice to a 
young person, or to any one who is seeking 
guidance in perplexity. Wrong advice has 



CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US. 63 

wrecked many a destiny. We cannot too care- 
fully weigh our language when we are speaking 
words which may influence or shape the lives 
of others, or determine the course they shall 
take. 

All our influence over others is included in 
the deposit committed to us. Every one has 
his influence. God puts into the hands of 
each one of us something which belongs to 
him, which we are to carry through this world 
for him, and bring at last to his feet. When 
a little child is laid in a young mother's arms, 
something of God's work which no other one 
can do becomes hers. She is charged to guard 
the precious life in its journey across this 
world, and to lead it safely home. Her keep- 
ing includes far more than the child's body. 
Its whole being is intrusted to her, that she 
may woo out in it whatever of beauty and 
strength is folded up in the immortal soul ; 
that she may train the life for its mission, and 
develop in it all its possibilities of power and 
usefulness. 

This work requires the best that is in the 



64 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

mother. She must teach her child the truth 
of God. In the ancient Jewish law the great- 
est stress was laid upon home instruction. 
Parents were commanded to teach the words 
of God continually to their children, until their 
very souls were saturated with the spirit of 
the holy precepts. Then there was but one 
book, — now there are many ; but the duty of 
home instruction remains. No book should 
be permitted in the hands of children which 
would bring to them anything that is not the 
word of God. The mother should read the 
book before her child reads it, since she is set 
to hold for it the pattern of sound words in 
faith and love. 

The home where children are growing up 
should be made as beautiful, as sweet, as pure, 
as full of love and gentleness and all holy in- 
spirations, as it is possible to make any spot 
in this world. The good thing committed to 
the mother she is required to guard through 
the Holy Ghost. She cannot do her sacred 
work alone without divine help ; she needs the 
help of God continually, and must live near the 



CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US. 65 

heart of Christ, if she would be fitted for her 
holy ministry. 

The same is true of all influence. It is part 
of the deposit which the Master has made with 
us, something which we are to cherish and 
guard most sacredly, and use to its last particle 
for the bettering, sweetening, and enriching of 
other lives. A good man on his last day 
wrote : " I die to-night ; but the members of 
my own family and of my own circle of ac- 
quaintance will never be again as if I had not 
known them. My influence upon them for evil 
or for good will be perpetuated in them, and 
through them to others, modifying remote gen- 
erations ; it will live for evermore, enduring as 
the waters of the deep, with countless changes, 
a power throughout all ages." Such a trust as 
this we must use with holy reverence. 

This lesson has its bearing also upon friend- 
ship. When a man takes a new friend into 
his life, he has received a new deposit from 
Christ. A good thing has been committed 
unto him, and he is bidden to guard it. Many 
people believe in guardian angels — that one 



66 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

of these heavenly ministers is appointed to 
attend each life from infancy to the grave. 
The thought is very beautiful, and there is 
no reason to doubt that such guardianship is 
assigned to each soul in its passage through 
this world of danger. But there are also hu- 
man angels set to guard our steps on the 
earth. When a new friend comes into our 
life, with confidence, we are ordained to a 
guardianship which is very sacred. 

Perhaps we are not apt to think of the re- 
sponsibility of being a friend. We find pleas- 
ure in friendship ; and we are apt to welcome 
eagerly those who come to us with trust and 
regard, not thinking what we owe to them, or 
must do for them, if we accept their confi- 
dence. We find cheer, inspiration, stimulation, 
and help in congenial companionship. Our 
friends meet our needs, satisfy our cravings, 
do us good ; and we do not think always of 
the other side — what we are to them. The 
essential thing is not to have friends, but to 
be a friend ; not to receive, but to give ; not 
what we get, but what we give. 



CHRIST'S DEPOSIT WITH US. 67 

We are seriously concerned, therefore, with 
the question what kind of guardian angel we 
are to the person whose life God has com- 
mitted to us in friendship. We must bring 
our charge back to God, not only unblemished 
and unhurt, but also enriched and helped in 
every possible way. We dare not take a life 
into our hands unless our hands are clean. 
What if we should put a stain upon the trust- 
ing soul instead of a touch of beauty ? What 
if we should guide the feet into wrong paths, 
paths leading to ruin ? What if our influence 
should be hurtful instead of helpful ? 

It is ours as far as in us lies to keep our 
friend from falling, and to present him fault- 
less before the presence of God's glory. We 
can do this with joy only by being faithful 
in every thought, word, motive, and influence. 
"That good thing which was committed unto 
thee guard through the Holy Ghost." We are 
fit to be a friend only when our own life is 
under the power of the divine Spirit. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MINISTRIES THAT BLESS. 

" Never are kind acts done 
To wipe the weeping eyes, 
But like the flashes of the sun 

They signal to the skies ; 
And up above, the angels read 
How we have helped the sorer need." 

We mistake when we think that only great 
deeds make worthy service. In no life can 
there be many large and conspicuous things ; 
the years must chiefly be filled with little 
things. Take even the story of the life of 
Jesus. In it there were, as recorded, a defi- 
nite number of miracles which stand out in 
the narrative as stars of the first magnitude 
in the heavens. But strewn through all the 
days, filling all the moments, crowded into all 
the interstices of that wonderful life, were in- 
numerable kindnesses and thoughtfulnesses, un- 

68 



MINISTRIES THA T BLESS. 69 

recorded, even unremembered words and acts. 
Jesus was not always working miracles, but he 
was always doing good ; and the greater meas- 
ure of the blessing he left in the world came, 
not from his few supernatural works, but from 
the countless common human kindnesses he 
wrought. 

It is so in every really great and good life. 
Now and then there may be some conspicuous 
deed done which wins the applause of men, an 
account of which gets into the newspapers, 
and which is talked about near and far. But 
on all the days of all the years there is going 
on a ministry of love which makes many peo- 
ple happier, which gives pleasure to old and 
young, which leaves inspiration of good or of 
beauty in countless hearts, which makes one 
spot of the world sweeter. 

Sometimes it happens that those who seek 
human applause for what they can accomplish, 
striving to do things that are conspicuous 
and that make a sensation in the world, have 
no beautiful ministry of kindness to fill and 
brighten the days of their common life. When 



yo THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

they do alms they sound a trumpet proclaim- 
ing the fact, that their good deeds may be 
seen and praised of men. But when they are 
not exhibiting their charity or their generosity, 
that is, when others are not watching, they 
are neither charitable nor generous. They do 
not take the trouble to be kind or loving when 
there is nothing to be gained by it. That 
is, their doing of good is spurious, because 
it is something enacted for men's eyes, not 
for God's. The staple of their life is selfish- 
ness. When they are not posing for effect, their 
days are full of things which are not lovely. 

It may be set down as a principle that the 
true test of a life is found in the things that 
are done when no eye is watching, — the 
things of the quiet days. The ten thousand 
little acts and words and manifestations of 
disposition, which make up the substance of 
living, much more fairly index the real char- 
acter than do the one or two things which 
people talk about. 

After all, the greatness is not in the con- 
spicuousness of that which is done, but in its 



MINISTRIES THAT BLESS. *Jl 

spirit, its moral quality. " With God there is 
neither little nor great ; there is only straight 
or crooked." That which we do really for 
God is great, though it seem but a trifle in 
human eyes. That which we do only for men 
is small, though it bulk large as a mountain. 

We never know what will be the end of 
the smallest good we do in this world. It 
may start a series of blessings which shall 
extend, with increasing benefit, through cen- 
turies. There are single sentences in the 
Bible which have been helping, comforting, 
strengthening, guiding, cheering, and inspiring 
men and women for thousands of years and 
in all lands. There have, been single acts of 
simple kindness, done even without the thought 
that they would be helpful, which have proved 
the beginning of endless chains of blessing. 
Says Faber, " When men do anything for 
God, — the very least thing, — they never know 
where it will end, nor what amount of work it 
will do for him. Love's secret, therefore, is 
to be always doing things for God, and not to 
mind because they are very little ones." 



72 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

When they get home at last, and all the 
harvest of their lives has been gathered in, 
good people will experience two great sur- 
prises. They will be surprised to find that 
certain things which they have done, which 
they regarded as great things, beautiful and 
good and largely useful, were really of very 
small account, received but slight commenda- 
tion of God, and left but small blessing in 
the world. But they will be surprised, on the 
other hand, at the great beauty and the rare 
value of other things which they have done, 
which they had not considered as of any im- 
portance, — things, perhaps, they do not even 
remember doing, they were done with so little 
thought that they could be of any worth. 

It is a law of God's kingdom that what we 
do with thought of self lacks one of the finest 
elements of moral quality. Consciousness of 
being beautiful mars the beauty. What we 
do, intending that it shall be fine and win- 
some, is of far less worth in God's sight, than 
what we do when our left hand does not 
know what our right hand is doing. 



MINISTRIES THAT BLESS. 73 

There are two classes of ministry in every 
life. There are the things which a man does 
purposely, which he plans to do, which he 
trains himself to do, which he does with spe- 
cial thought and deliberation. Then there is 
a wayside ministry, which he does without 
previous purpose, as he goes along through 
life, engaged in his allotted duties. This em- 
braces the countless little things of common 
courtesy and kindness, the things done on 
the instant, the greetings, the amenities of 
the street, the words of cheer, comfort, or en- 
couragement, spoken as men meet each other. 
We are apt not to make much account of 
these wayside services, while we usually set 
a high value on the things we have done 
with care, thought, and preparation. Yet it 
may be that ofttimes the former are of more 
worth to God than the latter. There is less 
of self in them, less thought of being seen 
of men, and more of the simple outworking of 
the heart's love. 

The doing of God's will is always a great 
thing, whether it be something that affects 



74 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

the welfare of a nation, or something that 
concerns only the good or the comfort of the 
lowliest of Christ's little ones. There is a 
legend of an angel who was sent to earth to 
keep a king from sinning, and at the same 
time to help a little struggling ant home with 
its burden. Both tasks were alike noble be- 
cause both were God's will. In a great paint- 
ing by one of the masters, there is a convent 
kitchen in which angels are doing the work. 
One is putting the kettle on the fire, one 
is lifting a pail of water, one is reaching up 
to the dresser-shelf after a plate ; and these 
angels seem just as heavenly in this lowly 
work as if they were doing divine errands 
around God's throne. 

We need to learn the lesson that any- 
thing that is God's will is great, and that 
whatever is not God's will is unworthy and 
ignoble, though it be swaying a sceptre over 
a nation, or being a world's idol. Many of us 
have to spend most of our life in what seems 
drudgery. Perhaps we think it is unworthy 
of us. We feel that we are capable of greater 



MINISTRIES THAT BLESS. 7$ 

things, and should not be required to spend 
our time in matters so trivial, perhaps so me- 
nial. But if it is God's will we are doing, 
our drudgery, as it appears to heavenly eyes is 
radiant as angels' ministry. 

Some people, when they think of how little 
they can do to help others, despair of making 
of their life anything worth while. They 
cannot leave blessings in the world. They 
cannot speak words that will impress others, 
or write books that will give cheer, comfort, 
and hope to any one. They cannot do kind- 
nesses which the recording angel will care to 
write down to their account. But God can 
use the smallest deeds, the smallest words, 
even a smile that comes from a loving heart, 
in making the world happier and sweeter. 
Nothing that has love in it ever perishes or 
fails to be useful. 



"The look of sympathy, the gentle word 
Spoken so low that only angels heard, 
The secret act of pure self-sacrifice 
Unseen by men but marked by angels' eyes — 
These are not lost. 



76 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

The sacred music of a tender strain 
Wrung from a poet's heart by grief and pain, 
And chanted timidly with doubt and fear 
To busy crowds that scarcely pause to hear — 
It is not lost. 

The kindly plans devised for others' good, 
So seldom guessed, so little understood, 
The quiet, steadfast love that strove to win 
Some wanderer from the woeful ways of sin — 
These are not lost." 

It has been said that he who makes two 
blades of grass grow where only one grew 
before is a benefactor. He has done that 
which makes one small spot of the world a 
little brighter and more beautiful. There is 
a story of a nobleman who always carried 
acorns in his pocket, and, whenever he found 
a bare place on his estate, he would plant one 
of them, that a tree might spring up to 
brighten the dreariness. That was something 
worth while. He who watches ever for lives 
that are bare of gladness, and drops a kindness 
to grow into a blessing, is doing work worthy 
of the archangel. 

We need never vex ourselves over the small- 



MINISTRIES THAT BLESS. JJ 

ness of our opportunities ; our only care should 
be that we use the opportunities that are given 
to us. Our one little word or kindly act, our 
one look that gives a moment's cheer, may 
tell on ages. We need not fear to waste our 
strength in lowliest ministry, to wear out our 
life in serving others ; nothing is really wasted 
that is poured out on God's altar in service 
of love for Christ and for his little ones. 

"Can we believe, O God, that we have done 
To full perfection our appointed task, 
Offered the sacrifice that thou dost ask, 
If, like small flowers, we brave the burning sun, 
Nor shrink from storms, but slowly, one by one, 
Tear from ourselves the grimy husks that mask 
An inward beauty, and disdain to ask 
A better heritage than there upon 
That lonely hill to bloom and fade and die, 
Content if in the tenure of our life 
Some haggard soul uplift his weary eye, 
And pause amid the muddy world's dull strife 
To gaze on us, and so forget to sigh? 
Is this to live the veritable life?" 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 

" A little bit of patience often makes the sunshine come, 
And a little bit of love makes a very happy home; 
A little bit of hope makes a rainy day look gay, 
And a little bit of charity makes glad a weary way." 

We are to serve others. When we find God 
we at once think of our brother. We begin to 
be like Christ only when we begin to be help- 
ful. But many mistakes are made by those 
who are only learning this lesson. Our very 
eagerness ofttimes leads us to try to help un- 
wisely. 

A friend tells of a young girl who recently 
became a Christian, and at once felt that she 
must serve somebody. But she did not know 
where or how to begin. She looked about 
among her companions — she was then attend- 
ing a large girls' school — to see if there were 

78 



MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 79 

any to whom she could be of use. There was 
one girl who was greatly burdened with her 
work. This eager young Christian thought 
she might do for this girl services which would 
relieve her. So she began to help her in car- 
ing for her room. But she soon learned that 
her assistance was not welcome ; indeed, it was 
resented. She found that she had hurt her 
friend's feelings, and that she could not con- 
tinue the help she had begun to give. 

Her mistake was that she was doing service 
merely for the sake of service. She wanted 
to be helpful, and looking round saw that here 
were things she might do. But the serving 
had not come naturally. 

The incident suggests that help may never 
be rendered merely for the sake of doing some- 
thing. We may not go out some morning, 
saying that we want to do two or three kind- 
nesses before the sun sets, and choose certain 
persons to whom we will do these kindnesses, 
without reference to their necessity or our own 
duty to them. We give a man some money, 
for example ; but if he is in no real need we 



8o THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

have done him no kindness. A young man, in 
his eagerness to be useful, may help his younger 
brother with his examples, working them for 
him. But that is mistaken kindness ; the boy 
would better be left to work the examples 
himself, with no more than a helpful hint. 

Or take, again, the case of the young girl 
in school. She was eager to express her love 
in some service, and she supposed she had 
found an opportunity. But her friend did not 
need this help. She was not sick ; if she 
had been, the serving would have been beau- 
tiful and natural, and no doubt would have 
been gratefully accepted. As it was, however, 
the ministering, though well meant, was little 
short of an impertinence. It was unwelcome, 
and weakened rather than strengthened the 
bond of friendship between the two girls. 

It requires wisdom as well as tact to help 
others in truly good and beneficent ways. 
There is always danger of over-helping. There 
are some persons who never decline a favor 
that any one is disposed to render to them. 
Children naturally accept whatever is given 



MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 8 1 

to them. Then there are older persons who 
seem always to have a hand stretched out for 
help. Indolent people never refuse to allow 
others to do their work for them. They are 
ready to accept gifts, to have their burdens 
lightened, to have their hard tasks done for 
them. But much of the help given to such 
people is real unkindness to them. Too much 
giving to children only teaches them wrong 
ways of living, gives them false ideas of their 
own duty and responsibility and of what they 
should expect from others, and makes them 
less strong and self-reliant. 

Many a father says, "I had a hard and toil- 
some youth. I had to fight my own battles 
unhelped. I am not going to have my chil- 
dren do as I had to do." So he makes life 
wondrously easy for his boys, has everything 
possible done for them, and indulges them in 
every wish. The good man forgets that what- 
ever is noble in his own character and worthy 
in his career he owes to the very hardships 
of his young days. It was in those struggles, 
tasks, and self-denials, that he got his manly 



82 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

strength. Then he is surprised that his boys 
do not turn out well, do not become strong, 
heroic, and useful men. It is the father's 
over-helping that is responsible for their fail- 
ure. If he had trained them to bear their 
own burdens, to do their own work, to restrain 
their desires, to endure hardships, to learn 
self-reliance, he would have been a far better 
and wiser father to them. 

There are many other examples of similar 
mistakes in helping. Much of the fashionable 
charity of the day belongs in the same class. 
It is not wise help. It may make life easier 
for a day for its beneficiaries, but it makes 
them less able to struggle on in the long 
years to come. At the beautiful gate of the 
temple Peter found a beggar asking alms. 
Instinctively the beggar held out his hand 
when Peter came up. But instead of putting 
a coin into the man's greasy palm, Peter began 
to talk to him. He told him he had no money 
to give him, but instead he would do some- 
thing for him which would make it unneces- 
sary for him ever to beg any more. So in 



MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 83 

Christ's name he cured his lameness. Surely 
what Peter did for the beggar was far better 
than any number of coins he might have piled 
in his hand. 

We cannot work miracles like this, but oft- 
times we may do that which will be as good 
as a miracle. Instead of giving money to one 
who has a pressing need, we may find him 
something to do which will make it unneces- 
sary to give him the money. Or we may put 
cheer and courage into a man's heart, enabling 
him to earn the money he needs. Either of 
these ways of helping is far better than giv- 
ing money would be. The man's spirit of 
independence is preserved. He is trained in 
self-reliance. His self-respect has not been 
impaired. Then he is stronger now for life 
in all the future. Over-helping is unwise help- 
ing — it does harm rather than good. Our 
best friend is not the man who makes life 
easy for us, but the man who inspires, impels, 
even compels, us to do our own best. 

In the minds of many persons who really 
need help, there is a repugnance to being 



84 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

helped which makes it difficult to do anything 
for them. They deem it inconsistent with a 
fine spirit of manliness to accept help from 
any one. It is a noble spirit in them which 
inclines them to want to live thus indepen- 
dently, although it may assert itself too ener- 
getically. The spirit of love, which seeks to 
minister rather than to be ministered unto, 
to give rather than to receive help, should not 
obstinately refuse to accept all kindnesses. It 
should allow others the privilege it prizes so 
highly and seeks so earnestly for itself. Jesus, 
while living to serve, did not reject the ser- 
vice of love which his friends were so glad 
to render to him. He did not decline the 
ministry of the women friends who followed 
him from Galilee, devoting their means to pro- 
viding for his wants. He accepted the hos- 
pitality of Martha and Mary and others with 
grateful spirit. Even if the service offered to 
him was of small value, he yet received it in 
such a way as not to disappoint or hurt the 
heart which had prompted it. 

It is not a beautiful spirit, therefore, which 



MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 85 

rejects all favors, and refuses to give others 
the pleasure of ministering to us. We should 
be willing to receive as well as give. When 
love or gratitude is eager to do something 
for us to express its feeling, we should show 
the most delicate appreciation of the spirit, 
and should be careful not to mar the pleasure 
which our friend has in ministering to us. 
Even if the thing done is itself something 
distasteful to us, we owe it to the sentiment 
prompting it to accept it gracefully and grate- 
fully. 

On the other hand, in helping or serving 
others we need to exercise great wisdom. 
Many a new and growing friendship is hin- 
dered by over-eagerness to be of use. Favors 
are pressed with an earnestness that is sincere 
enough, but indelicate; and the result on our 
friend is a shrinking from an intimacy which 
promises to be too urgent. There should be 
a prudent reserve in all showing of kindness. 
We should not be too eager — eagerness may 
seem meddlesomeness. We should not help 
too soon. Over-doing is worse than under- 



86 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

doing. We should respect the personality of 
our friend, and not put him under obligations. 
Even when there is need for help we may not 
be the friend who should render it. Relations 
of helping and serving must be mutual, and 
we should not seek to outdo our friend in 
kindness. This would destroy the balance of 
friendship which must always be maintained 
if the relations are to be kept free from em- 
barrassment. 

What is wanted, after all, is a heart of true 
love — love learned from Christ. This will 
make us ready to serve always every one who 
comes within the circle of our life. It will 
save us from all pride ; for love is lowly, seek- 
ing not recognition and praise, but seeking 
only to honor Christ and do good. It will 
save us from all invidiousness ; for love asks 
not who it is that needs help, but finds in 
every one a brother. It will save us from 
all selfishness ; for love forgets and loses itself 
in the one desire to do good, pouring out its 
best and sweetest blessings on the lowliest 
and least worthy. 



MISTAKEN MINISTERING. 87 

" Not mine to mount to courts where seraphs sing 
Or glad archangels soar on outstretched wing ; 
Not mine in union with celestial choirs 
To sound heaven's trump or strike the gentler wires. 
Not mine to stand enrolled at crystal gates, 
Where Michael thunders or where Uriel waits. 

But lesser words a Father's kindness know. 

Be mine some simpler service here below — 

To weep with those who weep, their joys to share, 

Their pain to solace or their burdens bear ; 

Some widow in her agony to meet, 

Some exile in his new-found home to greet ; 

To serve some child of thine and so serve thee. 

Lo, here am I ; to such a work send me." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 

My business is not to remake myself, 

But make the absolute best of what God made. 

Browning. 

No lesson was taught by our Lord more im- 
pressively than that we are responsible for 
making and doing the most and the best with 
our gifts and opportunities. The crowning is 
not for great deeds, but for faithfulness. The 
penalty for non-use of life's talents is the los- 
ing of them. 

There is an old-time curse that has a sug- 
gestive lesson for all time. There had been 
a great battle. A country's very life was in 
the issue. When the call for men went forth, 
and patriots from all over the land heeded the 
call, one hamlet did not respond. Then in 
the song of victory that was sung after the 
battle, when the valiant deeds of this and that 

88 



THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 89 

clan had been recounted, there came this fierce 
strain, " Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the 
Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof ; 
because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
to the help of the Lord against the mighty/' 

What was the reason for this curse ? What 
had the inhabitants of Meroz done ? They had 
not joined with the enemies of the country. 
They had not taken up arms against their 
brethren. They had not harbored the foe with- 
in their gates. They had only not come to 
the battle when the call rang in their ears. 

Men search now in vain for the site of Me- 
roz. It is not marked on any map. The very 
memory of the place has perished. This sin- 
gle bitter strain in the old song of victory is 
the one mention of it in any book. The 
word stands only as the symbol of a curse for 
not doing one's duty. It represents the man 
who, when other men are loyal, remains neu- 
tral ; when others are in the midst of the bat- 
tle, braving danger, receiving wounds, is found 
hiding at home, taking no part in the strug- 
gle. Meroz stands for the man who shirks 



90 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

his duty, who saves his own life when the 
call is for sacrifice, who abides at ease when 
he ought to be at the forefront of the field. 

The story is old, but the lesson is always 
timely. Every good cause is the cause of God. 
Christ's kingdom comes not only in the per- 
sonal sanctification of his followers, as they 
yield heart and life to his sway ; it comes also 
in every struggle between right and wrong, 
between purity and corruption, in every move- 
ment for reform, in every holy sentiment. 

The battle is going on forever in this world ; 
and the trumpet is evermore sounding, calling 
men to the help of the Lord against the mighty. 
It is not enough not to be against the right 
and the good ; God wants us to come to his 
help in every contest. Not to act for God is 
to act against him. " He that is not with me," 
said the Master, "is against me." 

Many of the gravest and most serious sins 
of men are sins of not doing. No wickedness 
is charged against Meroz. The people were 
cursed because they did nothing. It was a 
sin of omission. There are other illustrations. 



THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 9 1 

The priest and the Levite did not do any in- 
jury to the wounded man. They did not rob 
him, did not smite him, did not say abusive 
or unkind words to him. Yet every one who 
reads the story feels at once that they did this 
man grievous wrong, sinned most sorely against 
him. They did it by not rendering to him 
love's offices, by passing him by, and leaving 
him unhelped in his bitter need. They came 
not to the help of the Lord in this sufferer's 
behalf. 

In our Lord's picture of the last judgment, 
too, those who are set on the left hand are 
condemned, not for evil wrought by them, not 
for wicked deeds they had done, but because 
they came not to the help of the Lord in feed- 
ing the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, pro- 
viding for the needy, visiting the sick. They 
are condemned for not doing. 

We need to think carefully of our own lives 
in the light of this teaching. It is not enough 
that we are honest, truthful, upright, diligent 
in business, and faithful in our religious du- 
ties ; are we doing or are we neglecting the 



92 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

duties of love which wait for us at every turn ? 
We are to be judged by the things we leave 
undone quite as much as by the things we do 
which we ought not to have done. Many peo- 
ple imagine that they are very good because 
they have not done certain openly wicked 
things ; but one may be able to hold up his 
hands, and say, " My hands are unstained by 
any guilt," and yet the heaviest curse may 
hang over him, because he has not done the 
things he ought to have done. The word sin 
means missing the mark ; whenever we fail to 
come up to the full measure of love's duty, we 
have sinned. 

It may have been cowardice that kept the 
inhabitants of Meroz from coming to the help 
of the Lord that day ; for the enemies who 
were to be met had chariots of iron, and were 
fierce and cruel. At least, there is no doubt 
that the cause of the inactivity of many men 
in the Lord's work in these days is moral 
cowardice. They have not the courage to con- 
fess themselves Christians. They are afraid 
to be singular. They are not brave enough 



THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 93 

to take a side on great moral questions. So 
they hide away, and skulk back in their tents, 
when they ought to be in the field, fighting 
the Lord's battles. Many more people than 
we care to confess are useless to Christ be- 
cause of their moral cowardice. 

Or these men of Meroz may have thought 
they were so few in number that they could 
be of but little use, and that it was not worth 
while for them to go up to the battle. Many 
Christian people are rendered useless through 
the same false sentiment. They have no 
gifts, they say, and cannot do anything ; so 
they stay in the background, and come not to 
the help of the Lord. They forget that noth- 
ing is small which it is our duty to do ; that 
failure in a little duty may bring wreck to 
some great plan of God which needs our 
small part to fulfil it. 

Littleness is no evidence that a duty is un- 
important, or that we may omit the doing of 
it without hurt to the work intrusted to us. 
We should do the little things just as faith- 
fully and conscientiously as the great things. 



94 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

" Despise not thou small things ; 
The soul that longs for wings 
To soar to some great height of sacrifice, too oft 
Forgets the daily round, 
Where the little cares abound, 
And shakes off little duties while she looks aloft.'' 

Israel won the battle that day without the 
men of Meroz, but it might easily have hap- 
pened that the absence of a few men from the 
ranks had caused defeat. There are times 
when the failure of one person to do his duty 
in his place will bring disaster to the cause. 
A young girl found herself the only Christian 
in a school of a hundred. Her first thought 
was that no good could come from her con- 
fessing her Master amid such overpowering 
worldly antagonism. One little candle could 
give no light worth while in all that darkness. 
But her second thought was that she dare 
not fail to confess Christ. " I am the only one 
he has here," she said ; " and I must confess 
him." No one can tell what a loss it would 
have been to the cause of Christ in that school 
if she had not come to his help. 

However small the influence of any Chris- 



THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 95 

tian may be, or however little he can do, the 
Master needs him and his little piece of work 
well done, and something will go wrong if he 
fails to do his duty. The humblest of us dare 
not fail ever ; for God needs us and our gift, 
however small it may be, and our not coming 
to his help will make disaster to some cause 
or to some other life. 

Or even if it should make no difference to 
the cause of Christ whether we do our part or 
not, it makes infinite difference to ourselves. 
The consequence of the one-talented man's 
failure to use his talent was that he lost it. 
The penalty of uselessness always is the loss 
of power to be useful. We cannot neglect 
the most insignificant duty without harm to 
our own spiritual life and hurt to our charac- 
ter. The battle was won without Meroz, but 
Meroz never got back what it lost that day. 

Or it may have been self-indulgence that 
kept the inhabitants of Meroz away from the 
battle. They had their own little affairs to 
attend to, — their vineyards, their gardens, 
their fields. They were comfortable in their 



96 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

pleasant homes among the hills. Of course 
they were interested in the saving of their 
country ; but, as almost everybody was hurry- 
ing to the field, victory was certain without 
their help. So they self-indulgently kept out 
of the conflict, and stayed quietly at home. 
They seemed to be saving their lives, sparing 
themselves much cost and sacrifice. Yes, but 
when it was all over, and the victory had been 
won, a curse rang out against them because 
they had not come to the help of the Lord. 
This was the result of their self-saving. 

No doubt, if the thoughts of men's hearts 
were read, it would appear that much of the 
uselessness of people's lives can be traced to 
self-indulgence, unwillingness to make self- 
denials and sacrifices for the sake of Christ's 
kingdom. The centring of thought and effort 
on ourselves is always a fatal error in a life, 
and draws a curse with it. He who saves his 
life loses it. 

Yet it is easy to allow the self-indulgent spirit 
to creep into one's life. Others need us ; but 
we are busy with our own affairs, and are not 



THE CURSE OF USELESSNESS. 97 

willing to put ourselves out to serve them. 
To do what is required we should have to 
miss some pleasant engagement, — a dinner 
or a party, or give up our own comfort and 
ease for a day or for an evening. There is a 
brief struggle, and then we decide that we 
cannot turn aside to give the help. That is, 
we come not to the help of the Lord. We 
have saved our life. We are spared the dis- 
comfort of the self-denial. Our hands are not 
soiled with the rough work. We have our 
money still in our pocket. But as we go back 
to our self-seeking pursuit we hear the echo 
of a curse, "Because they came not to the 
help of the Lord." Browning puts it in his 
strong phrasing thus : — 

For I say, this is death, and the sole death, 
When a man's loss comes to him from his gain, 
Darkness from light, from knowledge ignorance, 
And lack of love from love made manifest. 

Even in our Christian life the danger of 
self-seeking is imminent. It is not enough 
that we find Christ for ourselves. If we rest 
satisfied with this, and sit down to the enjoy- 



98 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

ment of the blessings and privileges of friend- 
ship with Christ, giving no thought to the 
saving and helping of others, we are guilty 
of the worst selfishness. Only once did Jesus 
hang upon the cross, giving his life for the 
world ; but he would have his followers repeat 
and continue the spirit of that sacrifice ever- 
more in the eyes of men. It is not enough 
to hold up the cross in our preaching, in our 
hymns and prayers, in the Lord's Supper. We 
must have the cross in our own life ; we must 

9 

live the life of self-sacrificing love of which 
the cross is the symbol. 

The application of the lesson must rest with 
each one's own conscience. The curse is not 
against the enemies of Christ, but against 
those who call themselves his friends, and who 
come not to his help against the mighty. It 
is the curse, not of enmity and opposition, but 
of inactivity ; the curse of hiding away at ease 
when the Lord's cause needs all one's energy ; 
the curse, not of fighting against the Lord, 
but of not fighting with him. The impulse of 
the lesson should bring us out of our hiding- 



THE CURSE Ofi USELESSNESS. 99 

places of cowardice, of indolence, of self-indul- 
gence, to declare ourselves unequivocally on 
the Lord's side, and to stand forth boldly 
among his friends. This is no time for un- 
confessed discipleship. Cowardice is treason 
tc the King. We should gather close about 
our Master with holy devotion, and cleave to 
him with unalterable fidelity. To shirk our 
duty now is to miss the crown at the end. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE LIVING GOD. 

Fearest sometimes that thy Father 

Hath forgot? 
When the clouds around thee gather 

Doubt him not. 
Always hath the daylight broken — 
Always hath he comfort spoken — 
Better hath he been for years 

Than thy fears. 

Karl R. Hagenbach. 

The God of the Bible is a living God. He 
has a heart of tenderness and love like our 
mother's heart. He thinks of his creatures, 
and cares for them. He seeks their compan- 
ionship, is interested in their life, craves their 
affection, and is grieved by their sin or aliena- 
tion from him. Jesus was the revealer of 
God ; and he used but one name in making 
God known, — the name Father, putting into 
the holy word all that is tender, sweet, and 

IOO 



THE LIVING GOD. IOI 

compassionate, all that love could possibly 
mean. 

This truth of the living God is full of rich 
encouragement. It assures us of complete sat- 
isfaction for all our cravings. We know what 
a satisfying of the heart even a strong human 
friendship gives. There are friends who are 
to us like a great rock in a weary land. We 
flee to them in the heat of parching days, and 
rest in their shadow. A friend in whom we 
can confide without fear of disappointment ; 
who, we are sure, will never fail us, will never 
stint his love in serving us ; who always has 
healing tenderness for the hurt of our heart, 
comfort for our sorrows, and cheer for our 
discouragement, — such a friend is not only a 
rock of shelter for us in time of danger, but 
is also as rivers of water in a thirsty land, 
when our hearts cry out for life and love. 

Yet this, at its best, is only a hint of what 
God is to those who bring their thirsts to 
him. The cross of Christ meets the soul's 
most intense cry for pardon. The divine love 
meets the deepest yearnings of the hungri- 



102 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

est heart for love. God's wisdom answers all 
the questions of human eagerness to know. 
Things alone will never satisfy an immortal 
life ; even the best of God's blessings and 
gifts will not do it ; nothing less than God 
himself will suffice. Yet this is what Chris- 
tian faith finds — not the mere tokens of divine 
favor, the comforts of divine care, but God 
himself. " I am thy friend," is the assurance 
that comes to each trusting one. Thus it is 
that God meets all human cravings — by giv- 
ing us himself. 

The truth of the living God gives us confi- 
dence in prayer. Is there any one to hear 
us when we cry out of a sense of need, dan- 
ger, or desire ? Is there any one who cares 
to help us or bless us ? If God is only a great 
central Force at the heart of things, it is in 
vain that we bow down, morning and night, 
and tell out our heart's yearnings. Can a 
Force hear the cry of the children, the plead- 
ing of the distressed, or the sighing of the 
prisoner ? Would a man pray to the wind, 
or to the sun, or to gravitation ? If there is 



THE LIVING GOD. IO3 

no living God, there can be no prayer ; for 
then there is no heart to care, no ear to hear, 
no hand to help. 

Suppose we were to learn that all this cher- 
ished belief of ours concerning prayer is a 
mistake, that there really is no one who cares 
for us, or can give us any help, how dark the 
world would become to us ! Men who have 
been reared in the simple teachings of Chris- 
tianity, believing in a God of love, in the 
cross of Christ, and in prayer, and then have 
lost these faiths, have confessed that in the 
fading out of the childhood lessons from their 
heart they have lost their sweetest joy and 
their dearest happiness, and that the bright- 
ness has died out of the world for them. 

No other loss, no bereavement, no possible 
misfortune, could equal for a moment the loss 
of faith in God as our Father, and as the 
hearer of our prayers. A little poem tells 
the story of a band of pilgrims, sitting one 
evening beside the sea, each telling of some 
great loss which he had suffered, — one of a 
ship which went down with all his household, 



104 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

one of a fair face lost in the depths of a great 
town, one mourning a lost youth, some of 
vanished gold, others of friends proved un- 
true. 

But when their tales were done 

There spake among them one, 
A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free — 

"Sad losses have ye met, 

But mine is heavier yet, 
For a believing heart has gone from me." 

"Alas!" these pilgrims said, 

" For the living and the dead, 
For fortune's cruelty, for love's sore cross, 

For the wrecks of land and sea ! 

But, howe'er it came to thee, 
Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss." 

It is indeed true that no other possible loss 
can so bereave the heart and darken the life 
as the losing of faith in God. It leaves the 
world cold and empty. If we were to learn 
some day that all our Christian faith is but a 
dream, with no reality, life would lose for us 
its sweetest joys and holiest hopes. 

But we need not vex ourselves with such dis- 
tressing suppositions. Our God is the living 



THE LIVING GOD. 105 

God who loves us, knows our needs, thinks 
upon us, and hears our feeblest prayer — our 
own Father. 

This truth gives us assurance also of divine 
thought and care in all our life. Suppose, 
again, that one sad day we were to learn that 
there is no one, no intelligent being above 
ourselves, interested in the affairs of the uni- 
verse ; that this is a world of chance; that no 
wisdom directs, that no hand guides events; 
that the universe is only a vast machine, grind- 
ing on forever ; that bad men and devils have 
no check put upon their power to hurt ; and 
that our lives are hopeless victims of this re- 
sistless, heartless, remorseless grinding, — how 
it would darken all life for us ! A world with- 
out a Father ! A universe without love ! What 
would we do in the day of earthly disaster ? 

But how different is the teaching of the 
word of God ! This is our Father's world. 
We do not have to wait for heaven to find 
ourselves in God's care. Events do not run 
riot here, crushing all gentle things under 
their feet. There is no lawlessness anywhere. 



106 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

No wave of the sea in wildest storm ever 
dashes out of God's control. No pestilence, 
no earthquake, no flood of trouble, no tidal 
wave of misfortune, ever gets beyond the 
power of him who sits on the throne. 

It does not always seem so even to Chris- 
tian faith. God's children sometimes appear 
to be sorely hurt in life's experiences. Things 
appear to go wrong, with no hand of wisdom 
or love restraining or directing them. When 
we look at circumstances, — the loss, the suf- 
fering, the apparent triumph of wrong, — we 
sometimes almost question the truth of the 
words on which we have learned to trust. But 
we need to take wider views of the divine 
providences. Earthly evil is not the sorest 
evil. Sorrow, pain, and personal injury are 
not the things that really hurt our lives. It 
is possible to suffer every manner of trial 
and ill, and yet to be continually receiving 
blessing. God's keeping us from evil does 
not necessarily mean his keeping us from pain 
and suffering. Jesus was kept in the divinest 
keeping, and yet all the world's bitterness 



THE LIVING GOD. \OJ 

swept over him. St. Paul's course was one 
of loss and persecution to the very end ; and 
yet his real life, which he had intrusted as a 
holy deposit with Christ, was kept untouched 
by harm through all his sore experiences. 

So it ever is with those who commit their 
soul to Christ, and abide in him. Property 
may be taken away, friends may forsake, pain 
may rack, the body may be torn ; but none of 
these things can touch the soul. It is in the 
keeping of the living God, who is faithful, 
and in whose hands we never can perish, nor 
even suffer real harm. The pain and shadow 
are only the ways to the best blessings. 

u We must live through the weary winter 
If we would value the spring ; 



And the woods must be cold and silent 

Before the robins sing. 

The flowers must lie buried in darkness 

Before they can bud and bloom ; 

And the sweetest and warmest sunshine 

Comes after the storm and gloom." 



% 



At night, on ships at sea, when the bell 
strikes the hours, the watch in the lookout 



108 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

calls, " All's well. ,, There may be terror on 
the sea, a storm raging, the waves breaking 
over the decks. The passengers may be in 
dread, many of them sick, others trembling 
and afraid. There may be sore distress on 
board. Yet hour after hour, as the night 
passes and the bells ring, the cheerful words 
ring down from the little nest on the mast, 
where the lookout keeps watch, " Ten o'clock 
and all's well." In truth, all is well in spite 
of the storm, the waves, the sickness, and the 
terror. The great ship is riding in safety 
through the tempest, mastering wind and wave, 
bearing its precious cargo of life steadily to- 
ward the haven. " Twelve o'clock, and all's 
well ! " So the hours move, and at length 
morning comes, the sun shines forth, the 
waves sob themselves into a calm, and there 
is joy once more on board. 

So it is that the voice of Christian hope 
ever sings its song of cheer in men's ears in 
the midst of earth's storms. " All's well ! " 
In the world at large, amid all human sin and 
failure, God's plan of love goes on without 



THE LIVING GOD. IO9 

interruption. Good will come at last out of 
all that seems evil. The morning will break, 
the sun will shine out, and the great ship will 
be found beyond the storm, sailing on, tri- 
umphant over every danger. 

" God's in his heaven ; 
All's well with the world.' ' 

We need never doubt that the destiny of the 
world is good and not evil, life and not death. 
God lives, and he will bring us through the 
night to the morning. It is his voice w r e hear 
calling down, as the hours pass, " Midnight, 
and all's well ! " " Morning watch, and all's 
well ! " 

What is true for the Father's world at large, 
is true for each one of the Father's trusting 
children. We have no promise that we shall 
escape trial and sorrow. But we have the as- 
surance that nothing can harm us if we are 
the true followers of Christ. We are in divine 
keeping, and none is able to snatch us out 
of our Father's hands. What seems loss to us 
is but God's taking our treasures into his own 



IIO THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

safer keeping. What seems misfortune to us 
is only God's way of doing for us something 
better than we could ever have dreamed. God 
lives, and nothing can really go wrong with 
one who trusts him, and does his will. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE INCREASING CHRIST. 

" He leads us on 
Through all the unquiet years ; 
Past all our dreamland hopes and doubts and fears 
He guides our steps ; through all the tangled maze 
Of sin, of sorrow, and o'er-clouded days, 

We know his will is done, 

And still he leads us on." 

It is a joyful day when one finds Christ. 
But the truest coming to him is only the be- 
ginning of an acquaintance with Christ. Even 
in human friendships the beginning shows 
but a little of what comes out in the familiar 
intercourse of after years. The friend of to- 
day who is so much to us, whose character 
appears so noble, so worthy, whose personality 
is so rich, so charming, whose life is so strong 
in its influence and so faithful in its ministry, 
is not the friend we saw at the first meeting. 

in 



112 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

He has been changing continually, growing in 
winningness, in helpfulness, more and more 
of the worthy things in him being revealed, 
as we learned to know him better. 

The same is true of friendship with Christ. 
If we are faithful as disciples, the Christ of 
each new day will be different from the Christ 
of the day before. Then at the end of the 
longest life we shall find that we have only 
begun to know Christ. 

This is true of our knowledge of the char- 
acter of Christ. The mother tells her baby 
about Jesus, puts his name into its mind and 
heart earliest of all names. The little child 
soon learns something about him, — that he is 
good and gentle, that he loves children, that 
he died for sinners, that he safely keeps all 
little ones who trust in him. Sweet, indeed, 
is the child's thought of Christ, but it is very 
little that the child knows of him. Its con- 
ception of him is dim and vague, only a child's 
thought. But the study of the Master's char^ 
acter goes on as the child becomes a man or 
a woman, ever eager to learn more and more 



THE INCREASING CHRIST II3 

of him. Every day brings its surprises of new 
revealing. 

Christ is an exhaustless study. Every line 
in the Gospels reveals some new glimpse of 
beauty in him. Every sentence flashes some 
new revealing of loveliness in him. In Christ 
dwells all the fulness of the Godhead, all that 
God is. To know Christ, therefore, is to know 
God. In him is also full and complete man- 
hood, all that God meant man to be, all the 
possibilities of humanity. What a boundless 
field of knowledge this is ! All the Bible, all 
history, all science, all art, all nature, is full of 
the outshinings of Christ. The great business 
of our life should be to know him, to get 
acquainted with him. 

It is a shame if, with these wonderful books 
spread open before our eyes, every page glow- 
ing with the rich treasures of the knowledge of 
Christ, we give our chief time, thought, and 
study to the mere trifles of earthly life. It is 
a shame if Christ is not ever changing to our 
thought, ever increasing in the beauty and 
glory of his character. It is a pity if we have 



1 14 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

the same Christ year after year, with no new 
revealings of loveliness. If we make it the aim 
of our life to know Christ, every day will have 
its fresh disclosures of him. 

Then Christ should grow constantly in the 
mastership of our life. "He must increase," 
said John the Baptist, "but I must decrease." 
From that day Jesus became ever greater, and 
John grew less and less, until the Baptist's 
light faded like the beams of the morning star 
in the glory of the rising sun. The saintly 
French preacher, Monod, tells us how at first 
his heart's answer to Christ was, " All of self 
and none of thee." At length he caught a 
glimpse of the Saviour on the cross, hearing 
his voice of tender, patient pleading. Then 
his wistful heart said faintly, under the new 
influence, " Some of self and some of thee." 
The work of grace went on, day by day, bring- 
ing him lower and lower in humility, until at 
length his longing was, " Less of self and more 
of thee." Still the work was not finished, nor 
did it rest until the petition became, at length, 
"None of self and all of thee." 



THE INCREASING CHRIST. 115 

This should be the final outcome of every 
Christian's experience. Usually the heart's full 
surrender to Christ is reached in just this way 
— not suddenly, in a moment, but gradually, 
through a series of experiences. Little by 
little Christ wins the mastery over us, gaining 
something each day. The old nature yields 
slowly, — it is the work of years to bring the 
whole being into subjection to Christ. Yet he 
must increase, and the old life must decrease, 
until it is, "None of self and all of thee." 
Christ must reign in each life until he has put 
all things under his feet. 

The words of Christ also mean more and 
more as the new life goes on. The young 
Christian at first may not see great beauty nor 
find great help in the Bible. This may be to 
him also a cause of anxiety ; he may think that 
something is wrong because he cannot find in 
the Bible all the things other persons have 
found in it. The Bible is a book which dis- 
closes its meaning of comfort and helpfulness 
gradually, and only as we come to experiences 
in which the special revealing is needed. 



1 16 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

Every day of life brings us to some new 
sense of need, and then the Scripture word 
comes with its blessing. When Jesus met the 
tempter, his Father's word — just the right 
word — came with its revealing of light and 
truth, and the battle was won. Thousands of 
times since, when Christ's disciples have been 
on temptation's battle-fields, have the holy 
words of inspiration come with their cheer 
and strength. When life's first great sorrow 
is met the Christian finds almost a new Bible ; 
countless verses, which he had read repeat- 
edly before, without seeing any special beauty 
in them, or finding any particular help, now 
disclose rich divine comfort. 

Robert Louis Stevenson says, "The dearest 
friends are the auldest friends ; the young are 
just on trial." A friend must be tried and 
proved before we can take him into our life, 
and give him our fullest confidence. We often 
hear persons in some sore trial say, "I never 
knew I had so many friends until my trouble 
came." We can learn friendship's holiest and 
best only in time of need. 



THE INCREASING CHRIST. \\J 

Human friendships ofttimes fail for years to 
realize their richest possibilities, because there 
has been nothing to test their faithfulness or 
bring out their best. All this while they are 
only surface friendships, sincere and true, but 
not deep. Then some experience conies which 
demands the utmost that friendship can do in 
the way of service and sacrifice. The ordeal 
is past, the test has been made, friendship has 
not failed ; it has kept nothing back in the 
time of need. And now the friendship grows 
to its holiest and best. It is no longer a mere 
surface attachment ; heart has become knit to 
heart, life and life have blended in one. 

It is thus also with the friendship of Christ. 
Many Christians go on for years with only a 
surface attachment for him. It is no fault of 
theirs, perhaps. There has been nothing in 
their life to compel them into closer relation 
with Christ. They believe in him as their Sa- 
viour, they take his promises and lean on them, 
they accept his commandments as the law of 
their life and obey them ; but they have never 
learned to know Christ as their personal friend. 



Il8 THE JOY OF SERVICE, 

By and by something happens which compels 
them to trust him in the darkness, — to trust 
everything to him. In the deep need, the sore 
stress, or the great sorrow, when the friend- 
ship of Christ is put to the proof, it does not 
fail. After that Christ means more to the 
heart than he ever meant before. He becomes 
a friend as well as a Saviour. His love flows 
about them and fills their heart. They have 
really found Christ anew — have found a new 
Christ. 

We dread the hard things in life, — the bur- 
dens, the crosses, the responsibilities, the loss 
of earthly good, the pinching times, the strug- 
gles, the sorrows ; but really, if we are Chris- 
tians, these are life's best things, because they 
become revealers of spiritual blessing. The 
Beatitudes illustrate this. " Blessed are they 
which do hunger and thirst ; " " Blessed are 
they that mourn ; V " Blessed are ye, when men 
shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall 
say all manner of evil against you falsely, for 
my sake." The world would never write beati- 
tudes for such experiences as these. It puts 



THE INCREASING CHRIST. II9 

these experiences down among the misfortunes 
of life. What is the Christian secret of bless- 
ing in these ways ? It is not that tears and 
hunger and reviling are good in themselves, 
but that they bring us to points in life where 
we find spiritual food. As night reveals the 
stars, so do these experiences reveal the divine 
meanings of the words of Scripture; and as 
through our necessities we discover the golden 
qualities of our human friendships, so through 
the sterner and harder things of life we find 
the richest blessings of the friendship of 
Christ. 



CHAPTER XII. 

IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 

Hold thou my hands! 

In grief and joy, in hope and fear, 
Lord, let me feel that thou art near ; 
Hold thou my hands ! 

If e'er by doubts 

Of thy good Fatherhood depressed, 
I cannot find in thee my rest, 
Hold thou my hands ! 

William Canton. 

Doubt need not be sin. Unbelief is sin, — 
unbelief that rejects Christ and denies God. 
But there is doubt which is only faith search- 
ing for and finding its way. It is not content 
to take things for granted because it finds 
them in a creed, or hears some one state them ; 
it would know them for itself. Such knowl- 
edge gives a much securer foundation for 
faith than that which is merely accepted on 
the statement of others. 

120 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 121 

It must be confessed, however, that there 
are real perplexities in Christian life. Even 
doctrines which in the days of our happiness 
and prosperity we think are among our settled 
and impregnable beliefs, when the sore testing- 
times come must be relearned, and won back 
again into sure faiths through experiences of 
doubt, fear, struggle, and toil. 

Take the Christian doctrine of divine prov- 
idence. We believe that this is our Father's 
world, and that all things work together for 
good to them that love God. While all our 
affairs are prosperous, with nothing to inter- 
rupt our comfort, it is easy enough to formu- 
late our faith. But when our condition changes, 
when the blue is hidden by sombre clouds, 
when the stars go out of sight, when pros- 
perity gives way to loss and adversity, it is 
not so easy to maintain belief in the final out- 
come of good from all events. Most of us 
at least have to learn the lesson then anew, 
finding our way step by step through the dim 
shadows to the clear, full light of peace. 

We all may learn many things from others 



122 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

who have gone over the way before us, and 
many things from books in which the lessons 
of other lives are enshrined ; but, after all, 
each one of us must learn life's real lessons 
in experiences of our own. However many 
before us have found goodness and mercy in 
life's hard ways, and divine comfort in life's 
bitter sorrows, we cannot get these blessings 
until we have passed through the painful ways 
for ourselves. No other one's experience will 
do for us. 

Many good people are perplexed by troubles 
in their affairs. Their plans miscarry. Their 
harvests fail. They lose money. They find 
it hard to make ends meet so as to get daily 
bread. It need not be surprising that in such 
experiences anxiety creeps into the heart. 
Yet the Bible does not admit that there are 
any circumstances in which Christian confi- 
dence and peace should be disturbed. There 
are no experiences which the divine promises 
do not cover. Our Lord's counsel is simple, 
" Be not anxious for your life." Then he gives 
sufficient reasons why we should not be anx- 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 1 23 

ious. St. Paul puts the lesson in like words. 
" Be anxious for nothing." No room is left 
in the divine life-plan for worry or care. We 
have the promise of God's own peace, and God 
never worries. Christ bequeathed his peace 
to his disciples, and in the sorest stress of his 
life he was never anxious. 

What, then, are we to do with things that 
naturally would perplex us, if we may not 
worry about them ? The Master tells us to 
seek first the kingdom of God and his right- 
eousness, and then assures us that all needful 
things shall be added to us. That is, our own 
duty is to do God's will, leaving the care of 
our life, without anxiety, in God's hands. St. 
Paul's teaching is practically the same: we 
are to be anxious about nothing, but instead 
are to make all our requests known to God, 
and leave all with him ; then the peace of God 
will guard us. 

Another frequent cause of perplexity is un- 
just treatment. Others wrong us, do us harm, 
injure us. It is hard to bear unkindness, and 
keep our heart sweet and loving under it all 



124 THE J° Y 0F SERVICE. 

It seems to us that our life itself must suffer 
from these wrongs ; and we are tempted to 
think that we should do something to defend 
ourselves from them, or should try to set right 
the things which seem to have gone wrong. 
But the Bible teaching is that we need not be 
disturbed by the injustices or injuries which 
we have to suffer, and that we may safely 
leave them in the hands of God, committing 
them to him, while we go on with our simple 
duty. 

The story of Joseph furnishes a remarkable 
illustration of the powerlessness of wrong to 
harm a life which is in God's keeping. We 
pity the boy as he is cruelly sold by his 
brothers, and carried away as a slave. But 
we have only to read the story through to 
its close to see how even the wrongs which 
he suffered were made to minister good. We 
are apt to think, however, that Joseph's case 
was exceptional, that God does not take the 
same interest in ordinary lives. But this is 
not true. Joseph was no exception. He was 
no dearer to God than thousands of other 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 1 25 

boys have been, and his life was no more 
important in God's plan than the life of many 
others along the centuries. Every one who 
will commit his wrongs into the hands of God, 
going forward meanwhile in the path of duty, 
will learn that evil has been changed to good 
for him, and that blessing has come out of 
what seemed to be hurt. 

Jesus himself is the best illustration : " Who, 
when he was reviled, reviled not again ; when 
he suffered, he threatened not ; but committed 
himself to him that judgeth righteously." If 
only we will keep our hands off, keep our 
heart patient and gentle, and go forward in 
faithful duty, blessing will come from the en- 
during of even the bitterest cruelties. 

Another experience which brings perplexity 
and dismay to many good people is sorrow. 
A minister has just been telling of his sore 
bereavement. He had been married for eleven 
years, and has two beautiful children. His 
wife was a woman of rare strength of charac- 
ter and firmness of spirit. She brought great 
joy and good into his life, and seemed to be 



126 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

altogether indispensable to his happiness. The 
other day, when he was absent in a distant 
city, his wife suddenly became ill with pneu- 
monia. He was summoned by telegraph, but 
before, he could reach her side she had passed 
away. 

What is the Christian word for this good 
man in his grief ? God does not blame him 
for his tears, — the divine comfort does not 
deaden the affections so that we do not feel 
the pangs of bereavement. Indeed, the love 
of God only makes the human heart the more 
tender, and human affection the sweeter and 
richer, so that the pang of bereavement is 
even keener in the Christian than in the 
worldly man. God does not promise to keep 
us from tears. " Jesus wept." But the teach- 
ing of the Bible is that our sorrow shall not 
be bitter or insubmissive, but shall be chas- 
tened by reverent love, its darkness struck 
through with the light of peace. God's com- 
fort is strength — strength to endure. 

What is this comfort which can produce 
in the bereft life the quiet peace of God ? 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. Y2J 

For one thing, it is the divine revealing con- 
cerning those who are taken from us. There 
was no accident, to the mind of God, in the 
taking away of the happy young wife from 
her devoted husband, and from her sacred 
place at the heart of the home. Her mission 
on earth was ended, her work here was fin- 
ished. Her life was not ended, however ; it 
has only passed into another sphere, where, 
with greater power to be a blessing, she will 
continue to serve her Master. 

Then, for those who remain in the emptied 
home, the comfort is that God's love in the 
taking away of the dear life is just as deep 
and true as it was in the giving of it ; that 
there are blessings in sorrow itself which far 
more than compensate for the pain and an- 
guish; and that heaven will be nearer now 
since the dear life has passed into its bright- 
ness. 

Some day we shall know that no mistake 
was made when the messenger of sorrow came 
to our door. God's comfort is so satisfying, 
so enriching, so uplifting, that it is well worth 



128 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

our while to have grief that we may receive the 
blessing of divine consolation. 

" Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned, 

And sun and stars for evermore have set, 
The things which our weak judgments here have spurned, 

The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet, 
Will flash before us out of life's dark night, 

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue ; 
And we shall see how all God's plans are right, 

And how what seemed reproof was love most true." 

Another case of perplexity in many lives is 
in the not answering of prayers. The promises 
that prayers will be answered seem clear and 
direct as we read them ; and yet, when we make 
our requests, the things we ask for are not 
given to us. Many persons are sorely per- 
plexed on this account, and sometimes they 
even begin to doubt that prayer is heard and 
answered at all. 

But it is important that the Bible teaching 
on the subject of prayer shall be well under- 
stood. Much of our perplexity comes from an 
imperfect understanding of the divine words. 
The whole truth concerning the matter of 
prayer may not be found in any one passage. 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 1 29 

The teaching certainly is not that every request 
made by any one in prayer shall be granted. 
This would indicate that God had abdicated 
his place as Lord of the universe. Then, God 
is not like an over-indulgent parent who gives 
hks child everything he asks for. There are 
many foolish prayers for things which would 
not be blessings if they were given ; our Father 
will not answer these, however urgently the 
requests are pressed. There are prayers also 
to which answers come, but come in a form 
different from that in which the suppliant ex- 
pected to receive them. We ask to have the 
burden taken away, and instead, God strength- 
ens us that we may still carry it. This really 
is a better answer than we sought. There are 
prayers, too, whose answers are long delayed ; 
to grant them at once would be to give us 
unripe fruit, which would only harm us. 

The key of all perplexities concerning prayer 
is found in the reference of all our requests, 
however urgent, to the wisdom of God, asking 
him to consider them, and to do for us what 
is best, to give or to withhold, to grant what 



130 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

we ask or something else if that is better. If 
we thus exercise faith in asking, we shall not 
be perplexed in the answering or the not an- 
swering of our requests. 

These are a few of the perplexities which are 
common in much Christian experience, with 
the Bible teaching which ought to relieve them 
of their disturbing power. By every Marah 
grows the tree which will sweeten the bitter 
waters. For every form of distress in our life 
God has ready just the word of promise, or 
the grace which will give comfort and peace. 
The trouble with us too often is, that we have 
eyes only for the perplexity, and not for the 
peace that waits for us. If we were as quick 
to find the blessing as we are to see the 
trouble, it would be better for us. 

" O Father, I am in the dark, 
My soul is heavy-bowed ; 
I send my prayer up like a lark, 
Up through my vapory shroud, 
To find thee, 
And remind thee 
I am thy child, and thou my Father, 
Though round me death itself should gather. 



IN DOUBT AND PERPLEXITY. 



131 



Lay thy loved hand upon my head, 

Let thy heart beat in mine ; 
One thought from thee, when all seems dead, 
Will make the darkness shine 
About me 

And throughout me ! 
And should again the dull night gather, 
I'll cry again, Thou art my Father." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 

" The wind that blows can never kill 

The tree God plants; 
It bloweth east ; it bloweth west ; 
The tender leaves have little rest ; 
But any wind that blows is best. 

The tree God plants 
Strikes deeper root, grows higher still, 
Spreads wider boughs, for God's good will 

Meets all its wants." 

One of the problems of true living is to 
pass through the experiences of life without 
being hurt by them. We are often admon- 
ished concerning the seriousness of dying, but 
it is really a far more serious matter to live 
than to die. When one has lived well, dying 
is easy ; but life is always hard. It never 
ceases to mean toil, struggle, self-abnegation, 
resistance to wrong, earnest effort. Many peo- 
ple are hurt, too, in these experiences. They 

132 






A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 1 33 

do not pass through them victoriously. They 
are wounded in life's battles. They are crushed 
by its burdens. Its antagonisms wound and 
scar them. They lose something of the sweet- 
ness and gentleness of their heart in its hard 
struggles. Its harsh and rude experiences 
leave their spirit embittered. Its sorrows 
break the music of their joy. 

However, there is a way of relating our- 
selves to the incidents of life through which 
we must pass, so that none of them shall work 
us injury. There is no power in sorrow, pain, 
temptation, or injustice, which can hurt us, 
unless in some way we fail in our own duty 
in meeting the experience. No one can harm 
us but ourselves. It was a saying of Bernard, 
" Nothing can work me damage but myself. 
The harm I sustain I carry about with me, and I 
never am a real sufferer but by my own faults." 

These words are true. When Jesus was 
committing his disciples to his Father's care, 
as he was about to leave them in this world, 
his prayer for them was, that they might be 
kept from the evil. He did not say evils — 



134 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

there is but one evil. He did not ask that 
they should be kept from struggle, from suf- 
fering, from earthly loss, or from wrong or 
persecution. These are not evils ; in them- 
selves they have no power to hurt the Chris- 
tian's true life. The only evil in all the world 
is sin. So long as we do not sin, we have 
not been actually hurt by any experience. Our 
body may be mangled, cut to pieces, or burned 
in the flames ; but so long as we do not sin 
in thought, feeling, or act, we have received 
no trace of real harm. 

Just before his martyrdom, St. Paul wrote 
from his prison these words of sublime confi- 
dence, "The Lord will deliver me from every 
evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly 
kingdom." He did not mean that the Lord 
would deliver him from the cruelty of Nero, 
from the horrors of prison life, from suffer- 
ing, from a violent death ; but that in what- 
ever he might have to endure no actual harm 
could come to him. The Lord would bring 
him through all his experience, with life un- 
hurt, to the heavenly gates. 



A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 1 35 

There is a wonderful verse in the little 
Epistle of Jude which reads, "Unto him that 
is able to guard you from stumbling, and to 
set you before the presence of his glory with- 
out blemish in exceeding joy, ... be glory. ,, 
No matter how full of danger the world may 
be, how on every hand sin may work, how 
wicked men and evil spirits may seek our de- 
struction, yet there is a power which can keep 
us through all these perils without a trace of 
hurt, guarding us ever from stumbling, pre- 
serving us from all tarnishing of the soul, 
and presenting us at last without blemish 
before God. 

It becomes a very practical question, how we 
may meet life so that we shall take no harm 
from its experiences of testing and danger. 

Consider sorrow, for instance. There is a 
prevalent impression that sorrow is at least a 
safe condition, that those who endure it are 
thereby brought nearer to God, and that some 
good or blessing comes always from the bit- 
terness of grief. But this impression is not 
correct. Sorrow is an experience of great 



136 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

spiritual peril. Many gentle lives are irrepa- 
rably hurt by it. Too often in the experience 
of grief faith's vision of Christ is obscured, 
fellowship with God is interrupted, Christian 
energy is paralyzed, and the heart grows bitter. 
Yet it is possible to pass through sorrow 
without being harmed by it. One's heart may 
be kept sweet under all the brackish tides of 
grief, like the fresh-water spring beside the 
sea, over which the salt floods pour twice 
each day, but which emerges from each burial 
fresh as ever. All depends upon the way we 
relate ourselves to our sorrow. If we meet 
it without submission, with rebellious feeling ; 
or hopelessly, shutting out the stars ; or with- 
out faith, letting go the hand of Christ and 
forgetting the divine love and grace, — only 
harm can come to us from it. But if we 
meet it with reverent trust, knowing that we 
are in God's hands, and resting there in quiet- 
ness and confidence, singing while we suffer, 
we deprive sorrow of its power to work us 
harm, and compel it to yield us rich blessing 
instead. Acquiescence in the will and way of 



A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 1 37 

God taKes the bitterness out of trouble, and 
preserves in the heart the gentleness of Christ 
and the peace of God through the darkest 
hours. 

Or consider temptation. When we think of 
the malignity of the Evil One, the fierceness 
and persistence of the assaults which are made 
upon every human soul, and the insidiousness 
of sin, it is no wonder that we sometimes cry 
out in alarm, and ask how it is possible to 
pass through this world and keep our life 
unspotted. Yet it is possible. There is a 
way of meeting the sorest temptation so that 
no trace of harming shall be left. No power 
of evil can force the door of our heart, or enter, 
unless we open to it with our own hand. As 
Luther somewhere says, we cannot keep the 
birds from flying about our head, but we can 
prevent them from building their nests in our 
hair. We may endure the utmost pressure of 
temptation, and not be hurt, — being tempted 
is not sin ; but the moment we yield in any 
degree, we have received harm. Yet it is not 
necessary that we should yield ; for Christ 



138 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

has overcome the world, and through him 
the weakest of us may be more than con- 
querors. 

There is a wonderful word of Scripture 
which speaks of a Christian's life as being 
hid with Christ in God. What a blessed place 
this is, how warm and safe, how impregnably 
sheltered! Men seem ambitious to rush into 
the world where they must meet peril. But 
it is wiser far to avoid the danger of sin unless 
duty calls us to go into it. It is thus that 
the Master taught us to live in this world, 
when he bade us pray, " Lead us not into 
temptation, but deliver us from evil." We 
ought to fear the evil, and should be willing 
to meet temptation only when it comes in the 
path of duty in which God leads us. It is 
better to seek to dwell in the secret place of 
the Most High than out in the streets amid 
life's dangers. 

11 I would rather be 

'Neath a greenwood tree, 

With a song and a handful of daisies, 

Than the darling of victory 

'Mid the bray of the rabble's praises. 



A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 1 39 

I would rather ride 

On the wings inside, 

Where the hoofs and the horns come not after, 

Than fold loud Fame as a bride, 

Rouged Fame, with her leer and her laughter." 

The same is true of unjust treatment. There 
is a great deal of unlovingness in the world. 
There are some persons whose life is one long 
record of endured wrong or injustice. There 
are few, if any, who at some time do not have 
to suffer at the hand of others. How to meet 
these experiences is one of the most impor- 
tant questions we have to consider. There 
are two aspects of it : What is our duty to- 
ward others ? What does the law of love 
require ? Here the teaching of the New Tes- 
tament is very plain. We are to cherish the 
spirit of forgiveness. We are to return kind- 
ness for unkindness, good for evil. " If thine 
enemy hunger, feed him." 

Then there is an aspect of the question 
which concerns our own inner spiritual life. 
We must see to it that we are not hurt in our 
soul, in the depths of our being, in our life and 



140 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

character, by wrongs, injustices, or unkind- 
nesses which others do to us. The wound- 
ing which one may inflict upon our body by 
a blow is not all the injury which may result. 
If, when we are struck, we become angry, and 
permit the anger to grow into resentment and 
bitterness and a desire for revenge, we have 
now received a second hurt, which is far more 
serious than the bodily injury inflicted by the 
blow. 

Here it is true again, that nothing can 
cause one damage except one's self. One is 
never a real sufferer but by his own faults. 
Only sin can actually do us harm. So long, 
therefore, as we keep our heart free from bit- 
terness while enduring injustice or unkind 
treatment, we remain unharmed and beyond 
the reach of harm. 

No other one ever suffered such wrongs as 
did Jesus ; but the hurts he bore never reached 
his soul, left no woundings there. When he 
was reviled, he reviled not again, but kept for- 
giveness in his heart. He gave love for hate. 
They pierced his hands with nails ; but the only 



A PROBLEM OF LIVING. 141 

cry the pain wrung from him was a prayer for 
his enemies, and the blood from the cruel 
wounds became the blood of redemption. Paul 
is another example of the powerlessness of ha- 
tred and injury to harm a soul. He endured 
untold suffering, was beaten, stoned, impris- 
oned, tortured ; but you will search the records 
in vain for one word of bitterness or resent- 
ment. His heart remained sweet through the 
worst that human hate and rage could do. 

This is an important lesson, and one that 
every Christian should learn. We are always 
in danger of allowing ourselves to be embit- 
tered by injustice or cruel treatment. When 
we have sought to do good to others, and our 
love has been despised, rejected, and cast away ; 
when we have suffered and sacrificed in vain, 
receiving only ingratitude and unkindness in 
return for love's most sacred gifts, freely lav- 
ished, — it is easy to permit our heart to lose 
its tenderness, and to grow hard and misan- 
thropic. Then it is that life has wrought dam- 
age to our spirit, that we have sinned against 
our own soul. The problem of Christian living 



142 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

is to pass through any and every possible ex- 
perience of pain, loss, sorrow, temptation, or 
wrong, uninjured, with spirit sweet, peaceful, 
wholesome, loving, and unimpaired. 

The secret is, abiding in Christ, with Christ 
abiding in us. We cannot keep ourselves ; 
nothing less than the divine keeping is able 
to guard us from stumbling, and to shelter us 
from the hurt of sin. The old promise runs, 
" Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on thee." Our part is only the 
staying on God, in his love, close to his heart ; 
God's is the keeping. It was the promise of 
the Master that his disciples should take up 
serpents, and, if they drank any deadly thing, 
that it should in no wise hurt them. This 
promise stands for all who are in living rela- 
tions with Christ. 

"O Lord, seek us, O Lord, find us in thy patient care; 
Be thy love before, behind us, round us, everywhere ; 
Lest the god of this world blind us, lest he speak us fair ; 
Lest he forge a chain to bind us, lest he bait a snare. 
Turn not from us, call to mind us, find, embrace us, bear ; 
Be thy love before, behind us, round us, every where.' ' 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE MARKS OF JESUS. 

O Hands that were extended upon the awful tree, 

Hold up those precious nail-prints, and intercede for me. 

O Head so deeply pierced with thorns which sharpest be, 
Bend low before thy Father, and intercede for me. 

O Body scarred and wounded my sacrifice to be, 
Present thy perfect offering, and intercede for me. 

Old Hymn. 

In a passage of one of his epistles, St. Paul 
speaks of himself as bearing, branded on his 
body, the marks of Jesus. His allusion prob- 
ably was to the custom of branding slaves 
with the initial or some other distinguishing 
mark of their owner. These brands could not 
be removed ; and wherever the slave went he 
carried, burnt indelibly in his flesh, these wit- 
nesses of his servitude and his ownership. 

The marks in himself to which St. Paul 
referred were the scars, or other lines and 

143 



144 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

impressions, made upon him by what he had 
endured and suffered in serving and following 
Christ. He had been beaten with the scourge, 
and the weals were yet upon his body. He 
had been stoned, and he bore yet the scars 
of the bruises. He had suffered shipwreck, 
and had been exposed to cold and heat and 
storm, enduring hunger, thirst, and weariness. 
All these experiences had left their traces in 
his body. He was no longer the blithe, vig- 
orous, fresh young man who had witnessed 
Stephen's martyrdom. He was prematurely 
old. 

He called these records of his persecutions 
and toils marks of Jesus, because they had 
been received in the service of Christ. It 
was because he was a Christian that he had 
been scourged, beaten with rods, and stoned. 
It was in missionary journeyings that he had 
suffered shipwreck, hunger, and cold. If he 
had continued the life of a popular Jewish 
rabbi, receiving honors, enjoying wealth, dwell- 
ing in luxurious conditions, the idol of his na- 
tion, there would have been none of these 



THE MARKS OF JESUS. 1 45 

tell-tale lines of care, suffering, and persecu- 
tion. These were the price-marks of his Chris- 
tian consecration and life. 

Yet he was not ashamed of his scars. His 
tone is even triumphant as he speaks of bear- 
ing about, branded on his body, these stigmata. 
He wore them as decorations. The patriot 
soldier is not ashamed of his wounds received 
in his country's cause. He does not try to 
hide them, or to have them obliterated; but 
is proud of them, and loves to show them, and 
tell in what battles he received the wounds 
of which these scars tell. Says an old writer, 
"It is not gold, precious stones, and statues 
that adorn a soldier, but a torn buckler, a 
cracked hemlet, a blunted sword, and a scarred 
face." So St. Paul gloried in his sufferings 
for Christ, and in being the branded slave of 
Christ. He never thought of the marks of his 
sufferings as being in any way marks of dis- 
honor. 

Every true Christian bears also in his body 
the marks of Jesus. The body is the scroll 
on which the spirit writes all the life's story. 



146 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

If a man lives in self-indulgence, giving way 
to appetite, to passion, to lust, the signs of 
his sensuality and sottishness soon begin to 
appear on his face. If one yields to anxiety, 
to discontent, to fretfulness, the countenance 
will register the inner unrest and feverishness. 
Bad temper declares its hideous unloveliness 
in the features. It is impossible for the en- 
vious man to conceal his envy ; it writes itself 
all over his face, withering and wizening its 
freshness and beauty. 

In all departments of life the body is the 
revealer of the spirit. We all carry about 
with us the marks of our servitude, the brands 
of our master. The horny hand that grasps 
yours tells of hard, unpitying toil. The sail- 
or's weather-beaten face tells of rough sea- 
faring. The wasted frame, the trembling limbs, 
the pale cheeks, tell of disease. The whiten- 
ing hair, the wrinkled face, the bowing form, 
declare that old age is advancing in your 
friend. 

The finer spiritual qualities also show their 
indices in the body. As sottishness, sensual- 



THE MARKS OF JESUS. 1 47 

ity, and selfishness put forth their symbols, 
so do nobleness, self-restraint, and all moral 
qualities set their seal upon the features. A 
beautiful soul makes a beautiful face. Noble 
thoughts carve their majesty in strong lines 
on the brow. 

We are not called in these days to suffer 
persecution in serving Christ, and therefore 
we cannot point to any such marks of Jesus 
as St. Paul bore. We have no weals on our 
back made by scourgings because we are Chris- 
tians. We have no disfigurements telling of 
stonings because we loved Christ. Not many 
of us have suffered from exposure, or have 
lost our health, or worn out our strength, 
in Christian work. But if we are Christians 
at all, there are other memorials of struggle, 
self-denial, and sacrifice, which God and angels 
see in our life. All our best lessons are 
learned at real cost. We reach the higher 
by trampling under our feet the lower. We 
attain beauty of spirit by the crucifying of 
the flesh. We get our moral strength out of 
struggle. No one ever rises into noble char- 



I48 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

acter in vales of ease, walking along mossy 
paths, merely having "a good time. ,, It is 
the life of toil, of conflict, of self-denial, of 
pain, that makes the saints whose character 
shines in radiant beauty. 

It is a strange story, that of Jacob's all- 
night wrestle. In the morning he went from 
the Jabbok maimed, lame, limping, but a new 
man, with a new name, a victor over self, over 
his old nature. From that day, Jacob the 
supplanter was Israel, a prince with God. 
Through all his life, to its close, he limped 
when he walked ; but his limping was the mark 
of God upon his body, a symbol of spiritual 
victory. 

So it is ofttimes in the story of life. Out 
of our earthly defeats come our truest victo- 
ries. Many a man brings from business re- 
verses a new spirit, chastened, disciplined, with 
an eye for heavenly things. Many a woman 
comes from a sick-room with a blessing of pa- 
tience, gentleness, sympathy, thoughtfulness, 
which she had never worn before. Many per- 
sons come out of sorrow with a broken heart, 



THE MARKS OF JESUS. 1 49 

and yet with a holy beauty, a divine enrich- 
ment, a spiritual power, they had never pos- 
sessed before. These are all brands or marks 
of Jesus. They seem to be woundings. They 
appear to our eyes to be scars — disfigure- 
ments, telling of hard usage. Yet they stand 
for spiritual qualities, pearls of character grow- 
ing out of the woundings of the flesh, marks 
of growth, of new grace. 

There is something very suggestive in the 
thought that it is the woundings and disfigure- 
ments of life that are the marks of Jesus. We 
remember that it was by his wounds, the prints 
of the nails, that Jesus himself was known 
after his resurrection. May it not be, too, that 
we shall recognize him in heaven by the same 
tokens ? Every older Christian bears some 
marks of woundings. We are wounded in our 
conflicts with the enemy of our souls. The 
holiest saint ofttimes has had the hardest 
battles. Many people carry wounds in their 
heart — wounds made by sorrows. 

A young man who had been long in the Eng- 
lish army became a minister. When preach- 



150 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

ing in the city of his birth, he sought out his 
aged mother, whom he had not seen for many 
years. She did not recognize him ; but it had 
happened that one day, when he was a child, 
she had accidentally wounded the boy's wrist 
with a knife. To comfort him she cried, 
" Never mind, my bonnie bairn, your mither 
will ken you by that when you are a man." 
So now, when the old woman could not believe 
that this grave, fine-looking minister was her 
own son, he drew up his sleeve, and said, 
" Mither, mither, dinna ye ken that?'' In a 
moment the old mother had her boy in her 
arms. She knew him by the scar. 

So Christ recognizes his own by their 
wounds — wounds made sometimes by his own 
chastening. In the pearl oyster a tiny grain 
of sand makes a wound, which causes the little 
creature much suffering. But by and by a 
beautiful pearl comes from the wound.* Thus 
it is in the true Christian life, — the wounds 
of chastening, of sorrow, of trial, of conflict, 
through the power of divine grace, become rich 
pearls in the character, true marks of Jesus. 



THE MARKS OF JESUS. 151 

"Ask ye how such from others may be known? 
Mark those whose look is calm, their brow serene, 
Gentle their words, love breathing in each tone, 
Scattering rich blessing all around unseen." 

Young Christians may not be able yet to 
point to such insignia of their Christian life. 
The joy of youth is in their heart, the bound 
of youth is in their step, the hope of youth 
shines in their face, their strength is unwasted, 
and they have no scars from conflicts, hard- 
ships, or sorrows, to which to point as wit- 
nesses of their devotion to Christ. Their life 
is yet before them, their record is yet to 
make. But while they have not yet had the 
trying experiences which brand their imprints 
on the life, they may have true marks of Jesus 
in their faith, their obedience, their consecra- 
tion, the fruits of the Spirit in them, and their 
earnest, holy living. 

There is a legend of Francis of Assisi 
which says that in a holy rapture he once be- 
held the form of one crucified. When the vis- 
ion had vanished, the saint bore in his hands 
and feet and side the imprints of the wounds 



152 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

of the Saviour. This is only a legend. But 
there is a spiritual sense in which, when we 
gaze long and adoringly upon the Master, 
the marks of his life are really imprinted 
upon us ; not upon our hands and feet and side, 
in any merely physical branding of wounds 
upon our flesh, but in the putting upon our 
soul of the features of Christ's own beauty. 
Instead of literal nail-prints on our hands and 
feet, our hands bear the same love-marks that 
were on the hands of Jesus ; they become serv- 
ing hands, giving hands, holy hands, hands of 
help and healing ; and our feet become like 
Christ's feet — swift to run on love's errands 
and in the ways of God's will. To bear the 
marks of Jesus is to have the spirit of the cross 
deep in our heart, animating all our life. 



CHAPTER XV. 

IF CHRIST WERE OUR GUEST. 

" So still, dear Lord, in every place 
Thou standest by the toiling folk, 
With love and pity in thy face, 

And givest of thy help and grace 
To those who meekly bear the yoke." 

There is a little book entitled " How Christ 
Came to Church." A minister dreamed that 
a stranger one day came to the service, and 
that, upon asking who it was, he was told that 
it was Jesus of Nazareth. The book goes on 
to ask, " If Christ came to church, and sat 
in one of the pews — what then ? ' The 
question leads to many earnest thoughts. 

The form of this fancy may be changed. 
I dreamt that a stranger came to my door, and 
desired to be my guest. There was something 
winsome in his face and manner. I felt at a 
glance that he could be my friend in the deep- 

i53 



154 THE J° Y 0F SERVICE. 

est sense, and that his influence upon my life 
would be inspiring. Instinctively I opened to 
him, and said as I took him up to his room, 
" This is your house while you are here. You 
are welcome to all that we have and are." 

Instantly he seemed like an old friend. He 
entered with zest and freedom into all our 
home-life. There was no restraint in his man- 
ner, and his presence made no feeling of re- 
straint in our home. At the table, at my 
request, he asked the blessing on our food, and 
then entered into the conversation in a most 
cheerful way. So the visit began, and so day 
after day it continued. Each day we saw 
some new beauty in our guest, as he entered 
more and more deeply, but never obtrusively, 
into our home-life. 

But, strange to say, we had never learned 
his name. Indeed, the question, " Who is our 
guest ?" seemed never to have arisen. At 
length, however, as we sat one day at the table, 
I noticed his hands, and there were prints of 
nails in them. Then I knew it was Jesus who 
was our guest. Yet I was not disturbed nor 



IF CHRIST WERE OUR GUEST. 1 55 

overawed by this discovery. There was in him 
such sweetness, such humanness, such beauty, 
such dear familiarity of friendship, that even 
the surprise of learning who the stranger was 
seemed not to amaze me. Only a wondrous 
warmth came into my heart, and I felt that 
we would never lose this heavenly guest from 
our home. In the gladness of my feeling, as 
I listened to his cheerful table-talk, I awoke, 
and my dream ended. 

Suppose that Jesus Christ were a guest in 
your home, not for the night merely, but an 
abiding guest ; how would it affect your home- 
life ? What would be the influence of that 
loving presence on the spirit, the conduct, the 
speech, of the household ? 

How would it affect you parents in the 
training of your children ? Jesus would not 
interfere with your family government. That 
is the way some good people do harm when 
they are guests in a home. They give too 
much advice. They have too many criticisms 
to make, too many suggestions to give. With- 
out meaning it or being aware of it, they in- 



156 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

terfere with the home-life, — a sacred matter in 
which no stranger, no closest friend, should 
ever intermeddle. But Jesus would not do so. 
He would be your children's best friend. He 
would be interested in all their life, — in their 
studies, their play, their books, their compan- 
ionships. His holiness would not be of the 
kind to make them afraid of him, or to lay 
the slightest restraint on their innocent pleas- 
ure. He would be ready also to talk with 
you about your children. But he would never 
meddle with your family government and dis- 
cipline. 

If Jesus were living with you, how would 
you mothers bring up your children? It is a 
holy moment to a true-hearted woman when 
her child is laid in her arms, and she looks 
for the first time into its face. Croons a 
reverent mother over the cradle of her first- 
born : — 

" My child, I fear thee; thou'rt a spirit, soul! 

How shall I walk before thee; keep my garments whole? 
O Lord, give strength, give wisdom, for the task, 
To train this child for thee." 



IF CHRIST WERE OUR GUEST. 1 57 

With this feeling in your heart, would you 
not keep most careful watch over your own 
life, that it may be ever beautiful and worthy? 
The mother's life is her child's sky, atmos- 
phere, climate, and weather. She must make 
sure that it is full of wholesome influence 
in which all lovely things may grow. One 
writes : — 

Would you know the baby's skies? 
Baby's skies are mother's eyes. |^j 
Mother's eyes and smile together 
Make the baby's pleasant weather. 

Mother, keep your eyes from tears, 
Keep your heart from foolish fears, 
Keep your lips from dull complaining, 
Lest the baby think 'tis raining. 

It is living that counts first in its influence 
upon a child's life, before words can make 
much impression. A mother's love should be 
stainless in its purity, rich in its spirituality, 
tender in its affection, and strong in its moral 
principle. It should never be weak in a way 
that would make it over-kind, over-indulgent. 
There is almost as much harm wrought by 



158 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

unwise loving in mothers as would be by a 
lack of lovingness. The influence of Jesus 
as guest in the home would never lead to 
sentimental kindness to a little child. 

Then, as your child grows older, and begins 
to listen to your teachings, what would you 
do for it if Jesus were your guest ? Would 
you not teach it the words of Christ, tell it 
of his love, point out to it the way of duty, 
and daily commit it to his care ? It would 
seem worth while for every mother to try to 
weave holy home memories into the early 
years of her children's life. There is no surer 
way to bind them as with chains of gold fast 
around the feet of God. Is there any mother 
so busy that she cannot find time to spend a 
few moments every evening in her children's 
room in loving talk and earnest prayer? Far 
down into the years will go the memories of 
such holy moments, proving many times a 
bond of safety. 

The father's responsibility in the training 
of the children should not be overlooked. If 
Jesus were a guest, this sacred duty would 



IF CHRIST WERE OUR GUEST. 1 59 

not be neglected. No doubt, in ordinary cases, 
the responsibility is the mother's first. In 
the present conditions of society the burdens 
which most men carry in the world's life and 
in providing for their families are so great 
that they can give only fragments of time to 
the direct work of training their children. Be- 
sides, there are certain parts of the home 
duty which a woman can do infinitely better 
than a man could do. We all know how awk- 
ward most men are with a baby, while a 
woman does not even need to learn how to 
handle it with grace and ease. No hands so 
well as a mother's can write God's holiest 
lessons upon a child's heart. 

Yet fathers have a serious responsibility. 
What would a true father do for his children 
if Jesus were living in his family? He would, 
first of all, live a noble, manly life. He would 
maintain a character without spot. His life is 
one of the first two books his child reads, and 
he should want it to be well worth reading. 
He would make every effort to provide a good, 
beautiful, and comfortable home for his family, 



160 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

filling it with those things whose influence will 
be refining and inspiring. He would seek to 
give his children the best possible education. 
He would maintain in his home the forms, as 
well as the spirit, of religion, since he is the 
priest of the family. 

As children grow up they also have their 
share in the home-making. If Jesus were 
living with them, what kind of life would the 
young people give to their home ? What spirit 
would they show toward their parents ? How 
would brothers and sisters live together? 

If Jesus were a guest, love would rule in all 
the home relations. Mrs. Stowe has said, 
" How much we might make of our family life, 
if every secret thought of love blossomed into 
a deed ! There are words and looks and little 
observances, thoughtfulnesses, watchful little 
attentions, which speak of love, which make 
love manifest ; and there is scarcely a family 
that might not be richer in heart-wealth for 
more of them." 

We love each other at home — of course we 
do. We would die for each other. But too 



IF CHRIST WERE OUR GUEST. l6l 

many of us have a very inadequate way of 
showing our love. It were well if we learned 
to live for each other for the present, while 
there is no special reason why we should die 
for each other. There are homes chill and 
wintry, which could be warmed into love's 
richest glow in a little time, if all the house- 
hold were to grow affectionate — letting the 
heart's gentle feelings have simple, natural 
expression. 

If Jesus were our guest, there would be true 
religion in our home. That is not saying that 
our family life would be gloomy, silent, joyless. 
It does not mean that all the time would be 
spent in praying and reading the Bible. There 
would be merry laughter and happy song. 
They misrepresent the religion of Christ who 
would have us think of it as cheerless and 
severe. It is full of joy. It represses noth- 
ing that is beautiful and good. It forbids no 
pure pleasure. It casts restraint upon no right 
spirit. Perhaps we do things now that we 
would not do if Jesus were living with us ; but, 
if so, these are not things we should keep in 



1 62 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

our nome-life. No doubt his presence as a 
guest would greatly add to the gladness and 
mirth of many a home which now lacks these 
very qualities, and is too sober and serious in 
its life. 

No one needs to be reminded that this 
dream of Jesus as guest is not mere fancy. 
He is a guest in every Christian home. When 
we accepted the gospel Jesus came into our 
house to live with us. He has never gone 
away unless we have thrust him out. He is 
living continually in each home of ours, and 
we should shape all our home-life so that it 
will please him. Jesus in a home sweetens all 
its life so that benedictions pour out from its 
doors and windows to bless the whole world. 
Then — 

" Each sweet and secret thing within 

Gives out a fragrance on the air, — 
« 

A thankful breath, sent forth to win 

A little smile from others' care." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

WHEN TWO AGKEE. 

It is not prayer, 
This clamor of our eager wants, 

That fills the air 
With wearying, selfish plaints. 

It is true prayer, 
To seek the giver more than gift ; 

God's life to share 
And love — for this our cry to lift. 

White. 

" If two of you shall agree." Why two ? 
What is the advantage of two over one in 
prayer ? Why may we not pray alone, singly, 
each one in his own closet, quite as well and 
as effectually as when two are together ? Why 
is there a special promise to the prayer of two 
agreeing ? Will not the things asked for be 
given as certainly when one prays as if two 
united in the request ? 

Jesus said also, " Where two or three are 

163 



164 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them." Why will he be present 
more really, with fuller blessing, where two or 
three are gathered together, than where one 
bows in faith-filled supplication ? Why are two 
better than one in praying ? 

For one thing, when two pray together, each 
is drawn out of self, to pray for something 
else besides his own needs. While praying 
only alone, important as is such prayer in the 
individual spiritual life, we are apt to narrow 
our petitions to things we want for ourselves. 
We bring our own burdens to God. We pray 
about our own affairs, pleading for prosperity 
in our own business, imploring help in our own 
difficulties, deliverance in our own perils, and 
grace for our own experiences. This is the 
tendency of secret prayer. Its very blessed- 
ness as a privilege is in the fact that we can 
come into such intimate communion with God, 
and can bring all our questions, our sorrows, 
our fears, our weaknesses, our mistakes, our 
heart-hungers, to him. There is a great bless- 
ing in secret prayer. 



WHEN TWO AGREE. 1 65 

Praying by one's self is a duty. We cannot 
pray in secret while another is present. But 
praying only alone, with no outlook on the 
needs of others, tends to make us selfish, to 
keep our thoughts on ourselves, to narrow our 
desires, to repress our sympathies, and to stunt 
our growth in spiritual life. But when two 
pray together these unwholesome tendencies 
are corrected. We are led to forget our own 
burdens and cares, for the time at least, and 
think of the needs of others, or the wider in- 
terests of Christ's kingdom. This is always a 
wholesome experience. It gives enlargement 
to our life. 

Another advantage of prayer together is in 
the influence life has on life. You have some 
interest for which you are praying. You may 
pray very earnestly for this object which is 
so near your heart. But if another person 
who has the same interest and is carrying the 
same burden meets you, and you confer to- 
gether about the matter, and then kneel side 
by side to pray, your fervor and earnestness 
will be intensified. Faith in the one makes 



1 66 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

the other's faith stronger. Love in your 
friend's heart for an imperilled life quickens 
the love in your heart. Your brother's sym- 
pathy with you in your sorrow or your trial 
strengthens you in your pleading with God 
for comfort or relief. The interest of each 
grows deeper as both confer together. 

We all need companionship in our Christian 
life. Cloister piety has manifold perils which 
are obviated in associated Christian life. One 
log will not burn alone ; soon the flame dies 
out. It is the same with lives. 

"A life can't glow alone! 
The smile seems sad, the senses start, 
The will lies useless, limp, and prone ; 
Unchallenged and uncheered the heart ; 
And one by one the stars depart 
From all one's sky, to darkness grown, — 
A life is death alone." 

It is good to pray together. Life warms 
life. Heart quickens heart. Two logs to- 
gether will burn, the fire will become bright, 
and the room will grow warm. Two friends 
praying together stimulate each other, and the 
earnestness of each is increased. 



WHEN TWO AGREE. \6j 

When two pray together, their chief burden 
usually is intercession. Perhaps we do not 
fully realize the value of intercessory prayer. 
Love desires always to be helpful to others ; 
yet how little can we do one for another ! We 
may be willing enough ; but, to begin with, we 
do not know what our friend really needs, or 
how we can most truly help him. Perhaps the 
service we would render, even at much cost 
to ourselves, would do him harm rather than 
good. We would lift away his burden, and 
carry it for him. We would do the hard task 
ourselves to spare him. We would lessen the 
stress of the temptation for him, that the 
struggle may be easier. We would take out 
of his life the unpleasant things, that he may 
have ease and comfort. 

That is the way human love usually seeks 
to help. We think that is what love demands 
of us. But it is almost certain that we thus 
do harm to our friend instead of good. It is 
better that we keep our hands off his life, not 
trying to make providences for him. It is 
safer to commit all such cases to God, that he 



1 68 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

may do what is best. He does not help in this 
way. He does not take away the burden, be- 
cause there is a blessing in it which we would 
miss if the burden were removed. We may in- 
terfere with God's wise discipline of our friend's 
life if we seek always to make life easier for 
him. 

We know far less about people than we sup- 
pose we do. Here is a man in grief; he has 
lost a child, he is in poor health, he has suf- 
fered reverses in business, or he has had a 
sore struggle with adversity. You pity him. It 
makes your heart bleed to think of his sorrow 
or trial. You would like to help him, to relieve 
him in his hard condition. But perhaps if you 
could see within, you would not pity him, but 
would bow your head in reverence before him. 
His heart is rilled with the peace of God. He 
is living victoriously. He needs no pity, no 
help, from you. The best you can do for him 
is to pray God to keep him brave and strong 
in his trial. 

Here is another man who seems to be the 
favorite of fortune. Everything he touches 



WHEN TWO AGREE. 1 69 

turns to gold. Sunshine floods his pathway. 
You congratulate this friend on his prosperity. 
You would name him as the most favored man 
in the community. Ah ! perhaps, if you could 
see within his soul, where fierce passions and 
unrestrained desires hold sway, your congratu- 
lations would turn to sad pity. This man 
needs your prayers far more than your felici- 
tations. Your prayer for him should be that 
in his worldly prosperity his soul may not per- 
ish or be hurt. 

We can really know but little of the lives 
about us. It is scarcely safe even to try to 
help another by changing his condition or cir- 
cumstances. We may only mar the Master's 
work in him if we try to make life easier for 
him. It is better that, as we pray, we let God 
do what his wisdom knows is best for him. 

But we should never cease our intercession. 
We have not a friend who does not need our 
prayer for something. We do not know how 
much of the blessing wrought by Christ when 
he was on earth came through his prayers. He 
spent whole nights in supplication. On his 



170 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

heart he carried the burden of human sorrow 
and human sin, and went continually with it 
to his Father. Then we are told that his work 
now in heaven for his people is continual in- 
tercession. All the blessings that come to 
us these days come in answer to the pleading 
of our great High Priest. Much of our work 
as Christians likewise should be intercession. 
People need our prayers. We are not alto- 
gether faithful to the friend for whom we do 
not pray. " Pray for whom thou lovest," says 
an old writer; "thou wilt never have any com- 
fort of his friendship for whom thou dost not 
pray." 

Perhaps many of us are in danger of over- 
looking this part of our duty toward others. 
If only we realized the danger in which our 
friends are living, even when all things appear 
bright about them, when they are walking in 
flowery paths, we would never cease our sup- 
plication for them. We sorrow, with breaking 
heart, over our dead, who have fallen asleep in 
Jesus ; we do not know that ofttimes there is 
far more reason for sorrow over our living. 



WHEN TWO AGREE. 171 

We readily think of many who are in circum- 
stances of trial. Here is a young man who is 
making perilous associations, and is in danger 
of being dragged down to ruin. Here is a 
young woman who has been caught in the 
whirl of society, and is being carried away 
from the beautiful simplicity of her early days. 
Here is a man who has met a terrible bereave- 
ment, and is reeling under the staggering blow. 
Here is one who has suffered a financial loss, 
and is left, stript bare and empty-handed, to 
start anew in life. Here is one who has fallen 
unawares into sin, and lies in the dust of de- 
spair. Then there are those who are prosper- 
ous, whose very prosperity is their peril. There 
are those who, by a new, sweet, human friend- 
ship, which fills and satisfies their heart, are 
in danger of being drawn away from Christ. 
There are those who are just beginning the 
Christian life, and who, in their inexperience, 
need most careful guidance in the new and 
unaccustomed paths. There are broken fami- 
lies — father or mother gone, or both — -where 
there is infinite need of God's help. 



172 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

We have a duty toward all of these. We 
do but one part of our duty as Christians 
when we live faithfully, consistently, and up- 
rightly. It is not enough for us to be good 
ourselves ; we must reach out our hand to 
serve. The strong must help the weak. We 
must assist others by wholesome sympathy, 
by cheerful encouragement, by sharing our 
life with them, by all manner of self-forgetful 
ministry. But we should never cease to help 
them also by prayer. We know not what 
blessings from God we can call down upon 
them by loving, importunate intercession. 

It is told of a good man that in a great 
bereavement he was strangely, supernaturally 
calm and peaceful. It was discovered that 
some friends had agreed together in prayer 
for him, that his faith might not fail. That 
was the secret of his wonderful victoriousness 
in sorrow. Thousands are strengthened for 
their struggles, and carried in safety through 
untold perils, because loved ones are praying 
for them. Verily, "more things are wrought 
by prayer than this world dreams of." None 



WHEN TWO AGREE. 1 73 

of us know what we owe to the intercessions 
of those who love us and pray for us. 

But there is another side. How many go 
down in their struggles, are defeated in their 
battles, are wrecked in life's storms, because 
no one is praying ! A missionary came back 
from a preaching-tour, and reported that there 
had been almost no blessing on his work. A 
good woman said, " Alas ! I am to blame. I 
did not pray this time for you as I have always 
done before when you were out. ,, A mother, 
seeing her son led away as a prisoner, arrested 
for crime, cried bitterly, "It is my fault; I did 
not pray enough for him." 

If Monica had not prayed for her son with 
all the persistence of faith and love, the world 
would never have had Augustine. If Jesus 
had not made supplication for Peter, that 
apostle would have fallen away utterly. Who 
knows what moral failures there are continu- 
ally in all life's paths because those who ought 
to have made intercession were silent ? Who 
can estimate the loss from unoffered prayers ? 

We need to watch lest we grow selfish in 



174 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

our praying. We should remember that we 
sin against God when we cease to pray for 
others. No other duty to our friends can be 
more solemn or obligatory than this. And 
to add power to our intercessions, we should 
band together in leagues of twos or threes, 
and thus come within the scope of the prom- 
ise that if two shall agree on earth, touching 
the thing that they ask, it shall be given to 
them. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

LAMPS AND BUSHELS. 

" Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, 
Not light us for ourselves." 

The illustration is homely, but very sugges- 
tive. In the evening, when it began to grow 
dark, and the housekeeper lighted her rude 
lamp, she did not set it on the floor and turn 
a bushel over it, but set it on the lampstand, 
that its light might fill the apartment. Jesus 
told his disciples that they were his lamps, and 
that he wanted their light to shine out clearly. 
Yet there are many ways in which Christian 
people hide or obscure the light that is in 
them. 

For example, there is the covering of shy- 
ness. There are persons who love Christ, but 
shrink from a public confession of him. The 
very depth and intensity of their love seem to 

i7S 



176 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

make it impossible for them to express the 
love. Their feelings are too sacred to be re- 
vealed. There must always be an inner cham- 
ber of faith and love in a Christian's heart, 
where only God may hold tryst with the soul. 
There are feelings which can be uttered to no 
human friend. There is a love of which we 
cannot speak. We are not required to talk 
with many people about our heart religion. It 
is a proper reserve which shrinks from laying 
bare one's inner spiritual experiences. We say 
it is scarcely less than desecration when a man 
prates in public of the sacred things of even a 
tender human affection. Is the heart's friend- 
ship with Christ less sacred, less holy ? Surely 
no one should be expected to expose to public 
gaze all that belongs to the holy of holies of 
his communion with Christ. 

Still, there is danger that shyness may be- 
come a covering which shall hide the light of 
Christian confession. Even so good a man as 
Timothy seems to have needed the exhortation 
from St. Paul, " Stir up the sfift of God, which 
is in thee." Timothy was not making the 






LAMPS AND BUSHELS. IJJ 

most of his Christian life. He was not using 
all the power he had. Only a comparatively 
feeble light was shining out from his life, when 
there ought to have been burning brightness. 
St. Paul said this to him, "God gave us not 
a spirit of fearfulness; but of power and love 
and discipline. " Timothy seems to have been 
covering his light under a spirit of timidity, 
shyness, almost cowardliness. 

It becomes all of us to look to ourselves to 
know whether the gift that is in us does not 
need stirring up like a fire that is smouldering, 
whether we do not need to get more courage, 
whether our shyness may not be a serious fault 
in us, and whether it may not be hindering our 
usefulness as Christians. We should get the 
lamp out from under the covering of timid 
reserve, and set it on the candlestick of sincere 
and courageous confession. 

There is also the covering of natural feeling. 
The very heart of all Christian life is love. 
God is love, and we are commanded to be 
perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect. 
The sum of the commandments is, "Thou 



178 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

shalt love." We are taught to be longsuffer- 
ing in the endurance of injury and wrong; to 
be patient unto all men; to love our enemies; 
to forgive those who have done aught against 
us; that the servant of the Lord must not 
strive, but be gentle unto all men ; that when 
reviled we should not revile again ; that we 
should not avenge ourselves, but rather give 
place unto wrath ; that we should put away 
malice, anger, and clamor, and be sweet- 
spirited. Love is the light that should shine 
continually from the Christ-life in us. 

But some people hide this cheerful light of 
love under the old natural feelings of resent- 
fulness, unforgiveness, bitterness. They are 
quick to take offence. They hold grudges. 
They are not thoughtful. They do not for- 
give. They are quick-tempered, hasty in their 
speech, lacking affectionateness and sympathy. 
They may have a heart of love ; but it seems 
as if there were surrounding it and covering 
it a hard crust which prevents the outflow of 
the love. 

There are many good people who do not 



LAMPS AND BUSHELS. 1 79 

reveal their best self. They are like frown- 
ing fortresses, — outside, cold, stern, forbidding 
walls, but within, a beautiful garden spot, with 
home love, and refuge. These men are out- 
wardly brusque, severe, unapproachable ; but, 
when you find the way to their heart, there 
is warmth there, with faithful constancy and 
shelter of strong love. But how much better 
it would be if there were not this grim outside ; 
if the love found its way into the manners, the 
speech, all the expression ! We should not 
hide the warm light of love in our heart be- 
neath a covering of external unlovableness, 
but should set the lamp where its shining will 
reach every life that touches ours or comes 
under our influence. 

Then, there is a covering of egotism and 
self-conceit which sometimes obscures the light. 
The Christian religion teaches us to be mod- 
est and humble in our demeanor, to desire to 
give rather than to receive, to seek to min- 
ister rather than to be ministered unto, in 
honor to prefer one another instead of de- 
manding honor for ourselves. We are not to 



l8o THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

insist upon always having our own way, nor 
to think that none but we know anything 
well or can do anything in the right way. 

But sometimes we find a man, a Christian 
man, who is so full of vanity that he consid- 
ers no other one's opinion as of any account. 
He is upright, truthful, honorable, firm in his 
principles, inflexible in his integrity ; but the 
lamp of his good life is hidden under the 
bushel of an offensive egotism, an intolerable 
self-conceit. He treats other people and their 
suggestions almost with contempt. He is dic- 
tatorial and despotic, incapable of co-operation 
in work with others. Such a man, by the 
grave fault in his character, defeats the very 
purpose of his own best aim. He wants to 
be a leader ; but he seeks position as a right, 
claiming it, demanding it, rather than win- 
ning it by force of character and fitness, and 
by readiness to serve. Some splendid men, 
with magnificent powers, are rendered almost 
useless to their fellows by this offensive spirit. 
The true leaders are those who pay no heed 
to the mere outward forms of position, prece- 



LAMPS AND BUSHELS. l8l 

dence, and rank, but devote themselves in 
love and self-denying service to the good of 
others. 

By demanding place one may become like 
the figure-head, which vaunts itself in vanity 
upon the ship's prow ; but the true man of 
influence is rather like the propeller, which, 
hidden out of sight, drives the vessel through 
seas and storms. Jesus said they are chief, 
not who claim to be first and to have highest 
rank, but who serve the most deeply and un- 
selfishly. We must not hide the light of our 
life under the covering of an unlovely egotism, 
but should set the lamp on the candlestick of 
self-forgetting devotion to the good of others. 

Another of the bushels which some Chris- 
tians put over their lamps is the fretful, com- 
plaining habit. Light is clear and white. 
Christian life in its divine beauty is all bright- 
ness. Two words, peace and joy, express its 
true spirit. Peace is quietness, calmness, rest- 
fulness, contentment in any circumstances. 
The light of peace should shine in every 
Christian life. Then, joy is distinctive of the 



1 82 THE JOY OF SERVICE, 

Christian, — not the joy of this world, which 
depends on worldy conditions, and ebbs and 
flows with the tides of circumstances; but the 
joy of Christ, which the world cannot give 
and cannot take away. 

Peace and joy are essential characteristics 
of the light that should shine from every 
Christian's lamp. But how many people cover 
this white, pure light with the habit of dis- 
content and complaining ! How many of us 
have allowed the spirit of worry to creep into 
our life ! How many of us permit ourselves to 
murmur, and to find fault with almost every- 
thing in our lot! How many of us live in a 
perpetual fever of discontent ! Such habits 
dim the shining of the light that should ray 
out from our life. Fretfulness spoils spiritual 
beauty. A habit of anxiety hides the light 
of peace and joy. If only we would strip off 
these unfit coverings, and let the light of 
Christ in us shine out, it would add tenfold 
to our influence and power as Christians. 
Even in life's sorest trials and deepest griefs 
the light of the lamp burning within should 



LAMPS AND BUSHELS. 1 83 

shine out undimmed. Indeed, in sorrow the 
inner light should be even clearer than in 
joy. 

" Grief is a tattered tent 

Wherethrough God's light doth shine ; 
Who glances up at every rent 
May catch a ray divine." 

Another covering which obscures the light 
in too many Christians is ungentleness. Per- 
haps we do not realize how much of life's 
influence depends on manners. There are 
those who are true Christians — no one doubts 
their sincerity. They are honest, loyal to 
truth, liberal in giving, useful men. Yet in 
their manners they are so ungentle that they 
mar, ofttimes almost destroy, their influence 
for good. 

We need to study the art of living as to 
its manner. By the way one says Good-morn- 
ing, one leaves either a pleasing and an in- 
spiring impression, or casts a chilling shadow 
over a sensitive life. We need to train our- 
selves to thoughtfulness, kindliness, sweet 
Christian courtesy, — not effusiveness, not ex- 



184 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

aggeration of appreciation, for these are marks 
which betoken a measure of insincerity and 
weakness, and are almost worse than rudeness ; 
but to sincere affectionateness in our bearing 
toward all. We should be courteous to every 
one, even to the beggar at our gate, to the 
lowliest person we meet. 

" Hush, I pray you. 
What if this friend should happen to be — God! " 

Our Christian manners should be the inter- 
pretation of our Christian life. Perhaps we 
may say in excuse for a lack of refined cour- 
tesy, that our heart is better than our man- 
ners ; if so, how will people know that it is ? 
If our manners are wanting in gentleness and 
sweetness, we are hiding our light under a 
bushel, and it is not shining out to bless 
others. 

Such are some of the coverings which too 
often obscure the light of Christian life. If 
these seem little things, mere faults of man- 
ner or expression, it should be remembered 
that far more than we are aware are our lives 



LAMPS AND BUSHELS. 1 85 

hurt in their influence by what we call little 
things. Those who see us and judge of our 
character cannot look into our heart to behold 
the bright light that is burning there under 
all the obscuring; they must judge altogether 
from what shines out. We must take care, 
therefore, that nothing shall hide or dim the 
brightness of our lamp's shining. 

St. Paul exhorted the Philippians to think 
not only of whatsoever things are true, just, 
honorable, and pure, but also of whatsoever 
things are lovely and of good report. If we 
do not make our life beautiful and winning 
in its outward form, which alone men see, 
how will they know of the beauty, the grace, 
the worth, within ? We must express ever in 
our dispositions and our conduct, in all our 
behavior and bearing, the best that is in us, 
if we would fitly honor our Lord. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE VEILING OP LIVES. 

See this soul of ours ! 
How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed 
In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled 
By age and waste, set free at last by death : 
Why is it, flesh enthralls it or enthrones ? 
What is this flesh we have to penetrate ? 

Browning. 

When Moses came down from the mount 
his face shone with a strange brightness. So 
dazzling was the shining, that, in order to con- 
ceal the glory, he had to put on a veil when 
he talked with the people. 

Many people wear veils over their life. 
Those among whom they live do not see them 
as they are. There are some who move 
among men without any apparent heavenli- 
ness in their features, yet who really have a 
divine glow on their soul. They commune 
much with God ; and then they come out and 

1 86 



THE VEILING OF LIVES. 1 87 

mingle again with us in life's common ways, 
walking on our streets, sitting at our tables, 
joining with us in work and fellowship. We 
see no shining on their faces. They are not 
greatly different in appearance from the other 
persons we meet. At least there is no radi- 
ance, no halo of saintliness, visible. 

Yet their lives are in truth transfigured. 
Christ lives in them, and his life shines out 
in their faces. But they wear a veil, which 
conceals the splendor from human eyes. It 
is no purpose of their own to walk veiled 
among men. They do not try to hide the 
grace of God that is in them. But it is in the 
very nature of heavenly goodness to veil itself. 
We are counselled by our Master not to do 
good to be seen of men, but to give our alms 
secretly, only for God's eye. We are taught 
that we should be clothed with humility, and 
the garment of humility is a veil which covers 
and conceals the brightness of saintliness. We 
do not see the best of the good people about 
us. Many lowly, commonplace duties and ser- 
vices are really veiled angel ministries. 



1 88 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

1 'The highest duties of life are found 
Lying upon the lowest ground 
In hidden and unnoticed ways, 
In household works, on common days." 

This is true, ofttimes, of the loved ones in 
our homes, and of the friends who are most 
to us. We do not perceive the noble things 
in them while they live beside us, and serve 
us in so many familiar ways. Their lives ap- 
pear plain and commonplace. We see no halo, 
no shining of angel brightness. One sad day 
they leave us ; and then, when we have them 
no more, we realize for the first time what 
angels of God they were to us. Their help 
had been coming to us so long and so quiet- 
ly, without ostentation, without demonstration, 
that we did not appreciate its worth until we 
missed it. Their virtues and graces of char- 
acter had grown so familiar to us, wearing such 
common human form, so plain, so modest, that 
we saw not the angelic, the divine, beauty in 
them. 

Love walks veiled before us, so that we can- 
not see the shining glory of his face, Death 



THE VEILING OF LIVES. 1 89 

is the rending of the veil, and then we see the 
splendor as it vanishes. 

In other ways, too, are our lives veiled. The 
body is a veil which conceals within it all the 
mysteries of life. No one sees what goes on 
in your brain, — your thoughts, your imagina- 
tions, your fancies, your visions and dreams. 
No eye can look into your heart to note its 
daily history, — the affections, the feelings, the 
desires, the motives, the joys and sorrows, of 
your days. Every life carries a world of mys- 
tery within it, veiled from the eye of even the 
closest, dearest friend. 

The spirit is always hampered and limited by 
the flesh. The body not only veils the life 
which dwells within it, but also conceals much 
of its power and beauty. No good man ever 
lives out all the goodness that his heart con- 
ceives and desires to express. No most skil- 
ful artist ever gets upon his canvas the whole 
of the vision which is born in his soul. 

" What hand and brain went ever paired ? 

What heart alike conceived and dared ? 

What act proved all its thought had been ? 

What will but felt the fleshly screen ?" 



190 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

Sometimes a veil is put on purposely, by de- 
sign, to hide a secret evil life. There are those 
who steal the livery of heaven to serve the 
devil in. They wish the world to think their 
life fair and beautiful, and they wear a white 
veil. But the covering only dimly conceals the 
blackness and loathsomeness within. Jesus, 
as his eye pierced life's thin disguises, — for 
he knew what was in men, — spoke of certain 
men who were like whited sepulchres, outwardly 
beautiful, but inwardly full of uncleanness. 
What mockeries are any veils which earth's 
looms can weave, as coverings of men's sins ! 

There can be no really veiled sins. True, 
from men's eyes they may be concealed for 
a time. The dishonest man may cover his em- 
bezzlements from those at the desk beside him. 
The faithless husband or wife may hide from 
the other the faithlessness that so stains the 
sacredness of holy wedlock. But no veil hides 
the sin from the offender's own conscience — 
none hides it from God. What miserable folly 
it is to live a hollow life, with only a flimsy rag 
covering sin and guilt ! The only worthy life 



THE VEILING OF LIVES. 191 

is one which is open to all the world, which 
has no secrets that would bring a blush to the 
cheek if they were suddenly proclaimed on the 
housetop. 

But there are veils which are not intended 
to conceal plots or secret wickednesses. St. 
Paul says, " If any man thinketh that he know- 
eth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he 
ought to know." We imagine that we know 
each other, because we have lived in very close 
relations for a long time. We speak of know- 
ing a man perfectly. But really we know no 
one perfectly. Every life is veiled from every 
eye. The concealment may not be intentional, 
but from the very nature of life it is impossible 
for us to know any other person in more than 
a general and superficial way. We cannot see 
the motives which are back of actions, nor the 
reasons for the things our closest friend does. 
If we judge from appearances, we shall judge 
ignorantly, perhaps harshly and unjustly. 

There are many divine counsels against judg- 
ing others. One reason we should not do it 
is that our knowledge of other lives must al- 



I92 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

ways be only partial at the best, and very im- 
perfect. We see only " through a glass darkly." 
We see only fragments, and it never is fair to 
judge from fragments. We see only one side, 
and we condemn the act or the character, while 
perhaps the other side is lovely. If we saw 
that, our condemnation would change to praise. 

Another reason why we should not judge 
others is because nothing is as yet finished. 
An artist complains if you criticize his picture 
before he has completed his work on it. Until 
that time he keeps it veiled. God is an artist. 
He is working on men's lives in this world, 
but nothing is finished here. "It doth not 
yet appear what we shall be." The work is 
still uncompleted. By and by the veil will 
be drawn, and then we shall see the finished 
work in the lives which in their incompleteness 
seem so faulty. "We know that when he 
shall appear, we shall be like him." We should 
never judge God's unfinished work in men's 
lives. 

This teaches us that we should be very 
patient with each other's life. Too often a 



THE VEILING OF LIVES. 1 93 

misunaerstanding arises through only partial 
knowledge. We see it sometimes in families. 
For want of wise, loving patience, alienations 
occur, and lives which ought to be one in 
sympathy, affection, and interest, are held 
apart. We have all seen such estrangements, 
beginning with a seeming trifle, yet becoming 
so complete that two lives, dwelling under 
the same roof, touching each other continually 
and closely in the contacts of daily associa- 
tion, have grown miles and miles apart in 
heart, in spirit, in all that concerns real and 
true living. 

How careful we should be in all our friend- 
ships, — how thoughtful, how forbearing, how 
considerate, how charitable ! We should not 
judge others; and if we are misjudged we 
should not complain, but wait quietly for the 
fuller revealing which some day will come. 

We are moving toward a day when every 
veil shall be taken away. The veil of flesh 
shall rend at the touch of death, and the real 
self shall pass out into clear vision. Then 
shall we know, even as also we are known. 



194 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

We do not see realities while in this life ; 
death is the great revealer. Thus Brown- 
ing : — 

You never know what life means till you die; 
Even throughout life 'tis death that makes life live, 
Gives it whatever the significance. 

In that life of full revealing we shall no more 
wear veils, hiding us from each other. There 
shall be no mystery there — knowledge shall 
be full. There shall be no hiding of goodness 
or excellence behind blemishes or faults. No 
one shall be misunderstood. No motives shall 
be misconstrued. There shall be no misjudg- 
ing, no wrong interpretation of acts. There 
shall be no veils between friends, leading to 
alienation and separation. Friendships shall 
have nothing there to hinder their perfect 
fellowship. Lives kept apart here through 
misunderstandings or incompatibility shall there 
find the best in each other, and be knit to- 
gether in love. 

There is one eye from which there are no 
veils ; nothing hides any life, any nook or 
cranny of any life, from Christ. To him all 



THE VEILING OF LIVES. 1 95 

is open as day He never fails to see the 
evil in us which may be hidden from human 
vision, nor the good in us which may be ob- 
scured by our faults or frailties. He never 
misunderstands us, never misjudges us. He 
loves us, too, with all our faults ; for he knows 
what he can make even of our weaknesses 
and our failures. We can, therefore, intrust 
our life, as it is, with Christ, knowing that 
in him our holiest interests shall be safe. 

" One day the fingers of the Lord 
Upon my eyes shall lie ; 
And when their tender weight shall lift, 
'Twill be eternity. 

But while he holds my yielding lids 

With that soft force of his, 
My spirit shall not sleep, but wake 

Into his utter bliss." 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE MAKING OF CHARACTEB. 

Grow old along with me ! 
The best is yet to be, 

The last of life, for which the first was made: 
Our times are in his hand 
Who saith, u A whole I planned, 

Youth shows but half : trust God : see all, nor be afraid." 

Browning. 

The artist was trying to improve on a dead 
mothers picture. It showed lines and wrin- 
kles, and he wanted to take them out, so as 
to make the portrait more beautiful. But the 
son said, "No; don't take out the lines; just 
leave them every one. It wouldn't be my 
mother if all the lines were gone." 

He said it was well enough for young peo- 
ple who had never known a care to have a 
picture with a face smooth and fair, without 
wrinkles ; but when one has lived seventy 
years, years of earnest and noble life, full of 

196 



THE MAKING OF CHARACTER. 1 97 

suffering, toil, struggle* and self-denial, it 
would be like lying to cover up their track. 

Then the young man went on to speak in 
detail of some of the burdens which his mother 
had borne, the sacrifices she had made, and 
the sufferings and sorrows which had furrowed 
her life. He did not want a picture with the 
story of all these years taken out of the face. 
Its very beauty was in the marks and lines 
which told of what the mother's brave heart 
and faithful hands had done for love's sake. 

This incident has its suggestions concern- 
ing the cost and sacredness of motherhood. 
It is not easy to be a mother, and to bring 
up a family of children, especially in plain 
circumstances, where the burdens of household 
care rest heavily on the mother herself. We 
should honor the marks which tell the story 
of what love has done. The dearest things 
in our mother should be the lines in which 
the record of her love is kept. Sometimes 
children forget this. They see that the moth- 
er's face has lost something of its freshness, 
that she has not her old alertness and viva- 



I98 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

city, that her hands are wrinkled ; but they 
do not remember that these signs of decay 
or wasting of strength and beauty are the 
furrows which love for them has ploughed. 
Instead of being considered marrings or blem- 
ishes, they should be regarded as insignia of 
honor, like the soldier's scars gotten in fight- 
ing for his country. 

But the incident suggests also in a larger 
way how character is made. The word char- 
acter meant originally the lines, furrows, or 
scratches which the engraver made upon the 
metal. In life, character consists of the im- 
pressions left, the tracks cut in the soul, by 
experiences. A baby has no character; its 
life is like a smooth tablet with nothing yet 
engraved upon it. At once, however, the rec- 
ord begins to be made. Education, influence, 
the impacts of other lives, joys, sorrows, suc- 
cesses, and failures, all leave their touches, 
their lines of beauty or of marring, their fur- 
rows of suffering ; and at length, in mature 
years, the man stands among men with a 
character distinctively his own, the compos- 



THE MAKING OF CHARACTER. 1 99 

ite product of all the varied experiences of his 
whole life. 

The face ofttimes carries in itself an outer 
record, one that all can see, of the inner life. 
The face of a young girl has only fair beauty. 
She has never suffered, nor has she known 
care, struggle, or pain. Love comes ; and its 
story is written in glowing, transfiguring lines 
on the features. Motherhood brings another 
new experience, and the girl-face passes, is 
left behind. We see now instead the ear- 
nest, thoughtful, serious, solicitous woman-face. 
The years move on with their eager life and 
deep yearning, their trial, their care, their bro- 
ken nights and anxious days, their hopes and 
fears, their desires and longings, their prayers 
and cryings for help. There is sickness ; and 
the mother is ever at the bedside, her heart 
in her watching. Perhaps death comes, and 
sorrow overwhelms her. As the children grow 
up, the mother's load grows heavier. She has 
her fond hopes and dreams, which too often 
she must see vanish without realization. So she 
lives on until she is threescore and ten. 



200 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

Now, if we were to bring together the por- 
traits of the young girl at twenty and the 
mother at seventy, we should see all the story 
of the fifty years graven on the old woman's 
face. We might comment upon the differ- 
ence in the two pictures, saying, "What a 
pity the mother at seventy could not still 
have the sweet girl-face of twenty ! " But 
there is far more meaning in the old woman's 
face than in the girl's. Every line holds a 
story of self-denial. Every mark of fading is 
a record of love's toil and cost. Under all 
the traces which tell of age and feebleness 
there run under-lines which tell of victorious- 
ness, of battles fought and won, of lessons 
learned in tears, of heart struggles, of joy 
and hope, of pain and sorrow, of griefs and 
disappointments. 

The son was right in saying that the lines 
should not be taken from his mother's picture 
— it would not have been his mother's picture 
at all if the marks of the years had been taken 
out. Beautiful in its way was the face of the 
young girl before there was a line of experi- 



THE MAKING OF CHARACTER. 201 

ence furrowed in it ; but far more beautiful 
in its way is the face of the woman at seventy, 
— faded, wrinkled, deeply tracked, — because 
it records a story of heroism, gentleness, en- 
durance, patience, self-sacrifice, pain, suffering, 
all the marvellous story of mother-love. 

Those who are young are only beginning to 
make their character, but every day will leave 
some mark. The lesson is, the need of watch- 
fulness over all their life. Every book they 
read, every picture they look at, every friend- 
ship they form, every touch of another life on 
theirs, every thought they cherish, every expe- 
rience of joy or sorrow, of victory or defeat, has 
its place among the makers of their character. 

If at the end we would have a character of 
which we shall not be ashamed, we must keep 
a close watch over every influence which we 
allow to affect us. The heart builds the char- 
acter. Our thoughts carve the lines in our 
soul. If we are weak, cowardly, mean, selfish, 
sordid, or envious, these blemishes will appear 
in the final result. But if we are strong, brave, 
true, just, unselfish, and holy in thought and 



2C2 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

feeling, these qualities will become part of an 
enduring and noble personality. 

Life's moods also write their story, both in 
the character and on the countenance. Worry 
or discontent makes an unquiet face. Peace 
in the heart sets its shining beauty on the 
features. " Human physiognomy/' says Vic- 
tor Hugo, " is formed by the conscience and 
by the life, and is the result of a number of 
mysterious excavations." This is more true 
than any of us imagine. We carry the story 
of all our inner life on our face for all men 
to read it. 

A daughter writes after her father's death : 
" His face had been my greatest comfort all 
this summer, even when he could converse but 
little. It was the same pure, childlike face 
and smile in all his sufferings." But it took 
seventy years of noble, unselfish, holy living 
for Christ and for the good of men to make 
this transfigured face. 

The work which Christ gives to us really is 
to build character. We are not in the world to 
have a good time, to make money, to do great 



THE MAKING OF CHARACTER. 203 

things, to write books, to cultivate farms, to 
sell goods, or to study ; we are here to make 
men and women of ourselves. The test of 
success at the end is not our wealth, the ex- 
tent of our fame, the number of things we 
have done, but our character — that which will 
live on the other side of death, the person who 
will appear before God when our spirit pre- 
sents itself there. It is of the greatest im- 
portance, therefore, that we give first heed 
to the work that is being done on our inner 
life along the years. 

We must remember, too, that every thought, 
feeling, and desire, every play of emotion, every 
decision, every motive cherished, does its part 
in making the character. All life writes its 
records, and the records are indelible. Men 
are digging up these days in Assyria clay tab- 
lets which bear yet the writing put upon them 
thousands of years since. We are writing 
records, as we go on, in the books of our own 
life ; and from these records we shall be judged 
in the great day of accounts. We never can 
get away from ourself or from the story of 



204 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

our own life. How important it is that every 
thought shall be white and holy ! 

It is not the easy life that leaves the noblest 
record in character. It is plainly taught in 
Holy Scripture that we must through much 
tribulation enter the kingdom. A twofold 
baptism is appointed to believers — with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire. We are told even of 
Jesus that, though he were a Son, yet he learned 
obedience through the things that he suffered, 
and that he was made perfect through suffering. 
Much more needful is it for us that we pass 
through tribulations in the purifying of our 
life, and the making of Christly character in us. 

We are not to suppose that the bereave- 
ments and the common sorrows of which 
others know are all of the trials through which 
we must pass. Our bitterest griefs and strug- 
gles are endured in the sacred secrecy of our 
own heart, where no eye but God's can see. 
We can make no step forward and upward in 
spiritual life but through battle, through vic- 
tory over our old self. Something in self 
must die in every true gain we make in char- 



THE MAKING OF CHARACTER. 205 

acter. In the Revelation we read of certain 
great blessings which are offered to the fol- 
lowers of Christ, but every one of them waits 
beyond a line of battle. Only "to him that 
overcometh " are these prizes of character, these 
rewards for achievement, promised. There are 
other graves along our pathway besides those 
in which we lay away our beloved. 

"What is it thou buriest so softly and still? 
Oh, this is the grave of my own proud will. 
I bid it sleep softly in death's little room, 
And my hopes, too, I bury with it in the tomb." 

It is these inward struggles and battles that 
most deeply scar our life. We come out of 
them bearing marks which we shall carry for- 
ever. But these marks are not disfigurements, 
— they are lines which tell of spiritual gains. 
Gold is not hurt by the fire. The stone is 
not marred by the sculptor's hewing. "While 
the marble wastes, the image grows." At the 
last that which will be most beautiful in us 
will not be what we have saved from the hard 
blows of the hammer, but the marks which will 
tell of the deepest cuttings of the chisel. 



CHAPTER XX. 

"DO NOTHING RASHLY." 

Had I but known that nothing is undone 

From rising until setting of the sun, 

That full-fledged words fly off beyond our reach, 

That not a deed brought forth to life dies ever, 

I would have measured out and weighed my speech; 

To bear good deeds had been my sole endeavor. 

MacCulloch. 

The town-clerk was wise when he urged the 
people of Ephesus to do nothing rashly. He 
told them they might do injustice to the men 
concerning whom the disturbance had arisen. 
He said there was a right way to proceed; 
if the men had done anything wrong, the 
courts were open, and it would be easy to 
have them tried and convicted. Rashness, he 
assured them, might bring upon themselves 
serious trouble. 

This was good advice that day, and it is 
good for us all. Most of us are inclined, at 

206 



"DO NOTHING RASHLY." 207 

times at least, to act rashly. We are readily 
carried off by excitement or by feeling, and we 
do things then which cost us no end of trouble 
before we are through with them. 

There are many rash words spoken. Per- 
sons get angry, and in anger the tongue is too 
often like a runaway horse. The driver has 
lost control ; and the horse rushes along the 
street, perhaps trampling down women and 
children, perhaps dashing the vehicle to pieces, 
and injuring the unfortunate driver himself. 
A runaway tongue may do even more serious 
harm than a runaway horse. It may speak 
words which will hurt lives irreparably, and it 
may do incalculable injury to the speaker him- 
self. Rash words hurt tender hearts. They 
alienate friends. They start suspicion con- 
cerning good people, and blast reputations. 
What cruel things are rash words ! 

How much better it would be if we all 
learned never to speak hastily ! It were good 
to be slow of speech in a way ; for then we 
would not talk rashly — we would take time 
to think before speaking. We were never 



208 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

sorry for not saying the hot word that flew 
to our lips when we were excited. It would 
have been bitter, unloving, ungentle. It could 
have done no good. It would have wrought 
only pain and harm. It would have dishonored 
our Master, for it would have been an exhibi- 
tion of un-Christlikeness. Jesus never spoke 
a hasty word. He kept silent under insult, 
pain, reproach, and sorest injury — not sullen 
silence, but silence sweet with patient, peaceful 
love. We are never sorry for following this 
perfect example, and restraining the cutting 
words. But we are sorry always when we 
have spoken hastily. If we had taken a little 
time to think, we would not have made the 
sharp retort which has done so much harm. 

There are other rash words besides those 
spoken in hot temper. There are persons who 
never wait to hear all of a story before they 
express an opinion. Their judgments are only 
half formed, for they wait for but half the in- 
formation they need to form a fair opinion. 
They jump to a conclusion when they have 
only a part of the facts before them. As a 



"DO NOTHING RASHLY: 1 2<X) 

consequence, they are often wrong, and not 
infrequently do serious injustice to others 
whom they condemn on only one-sided evi- 
dence. We have no right to form an opinion 
in which the character or interest of another 
is concerned, until we have gone patiently and 
conscientiously over all the facts, so as to be 
able to judge fairly. Hastily formed judg- 
ments of others are most likely to be unjust 
judgments. 

There are those also who make rash decis- 
ions, and enter into rash engagements. They 
are carried off by their emotions, and in their 
excitement give promises which afterward they 
find themselves unable to keep. Failures in 
business and losses of money result ofttimes 
from rash investing ; men are deceived by illu- 
sory prospects, and rush into schemes which 
prove unprofitable. Many persons make like 
mistakes in choosing friends. Young men are 
charmed by a pretty face or a pleasant manner, 
and fall in love only to find by and by what 
silly fools they were. A great many broken 
engagements and many unhappy marriages 



2IO THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

would have been averted if there had been 
more deliberation at the beginning. 

Many persons have a reputation for not re- 
garding their promises. Those who know 
them put but little dependence upon their 
word, for it is broken as frequently as it is 
kept. Sometimes the trouble lies in a lack 
of conscience on the subject,- — men seem 
never to think that it is wrong to break a 
promise, to fail in an engagement, or to dis- 
regard a pledge. Sometimes, however, it is 
because they make promises rashly, not con- 
sidering whether they can keep them or not. 
A truly honorable man never breaks his light- 
est word, but he never gives his word without 
having first thought of the matter carefully. 

Even in religion, Jesus teaches that men 
should count the cost before they make their 
decision, — not that there can be any doubt 
regarding their duty, but because great harm 
results from beginning to follow Christ, and 
then giving up and turning back. It is better 
not to vow, than to vow and not pay. It is 
better not to profess to follow Christ, than, 



"DO NOTHING RASHLY:'' 211 

having made the profession, to fail in keeping 
it, and to go back again into the world. 

Thus in many different departments of life 
mischief is wrought by rashness. People do 
not take time to think ; and then they do fool- 
ish and reckless things which bring them into 
trouble, and do incalculable harm to others. 
We should train ourselves to greater deliber- 
ateness in speech and act. We should get such 
mastery over ourselves that our tongue shall 
never betray us by any unadvised word, and 
that neither appetite nor passion shall ever lead 
us to do anything we shall be sorry afterward 
for doing. 

It is a safe rule to do nothing in excitement. 
If one speaks sharply or bitterly to us, we 
would better not give any rejoinder for some 
hours, until there has been time for the bitter- 
ness to pass away. If we receive a letter which 
contains something that hurts us, we would 
better lay it aside, not answering it at once. 
Then, after we have written our reply, it would 
be well if we laid that away at least over night, 
and read it again before sending it. When 



2 I 2 THE JO Y OF SER VICE. 

young people begin to fancy that they are in 
love, they would better place a firm hand on 
their feelings, and put a bridle on their tongue, 
waiting a reasonable time before they make 
any declaration or confession. Nothing will 
suffer by delay, and perhaps there will be one 
less folly committed if time is taken to think 
over the matter before saying anything. 

If some new project is proposed, with its 
glowing visions of success and wealth, and 
young men are tempted to embark at once in 
the splendid enterprise, perhaps putting all 
their money into it, they would better wait. 
They would better be sure that it is not a mere 
bubble which will burst to-morrow. " Nothing 
ventured, nothing won," may be a wise enough 
maxim in some lines ; but often it is a very fool- 
ish motto. At least, before the venture is made, 
it should be known, of a reasonable certainty, 
that the project is not a mere visionary one, 
nor a fraudulent scheme to get the money of 
credulous investors. 

We may well write the town clerk's bit of 
sage counsel down among our maxims for self- 



"DO NOTHING RASHLY:' 21$ 

government. We shall never be sorry after- 
ward for thinking twice before we speak, for 
counting the cost before entering upon any 
new course, for sleeping over stings and inju- 
ries before saying or doing anything in an- 
swer, or for carefully considering any business 
scheme presented to us before putting money 
or name into it. It will save us from much 
regret, loss, and sorrow, always to remember to 
do nothing rashly. 

" My mind was ruffled with small cares to-day, 
And I said pettish words, and did not keep 
Long-suffering patience well, and now how deep 
My trouble for this sin ! In vain I weep 
For foolish words I never can unsay." 



CHAPTER XXL 

TALKING OP ONE'S AILMENTS. 

" Thy trouble, loss, or greatest grief, 

May in thy darkest day 
Fill black despair with no relief, 

Find in the gloom no ray ; 
But struggle on, be brave and strong, 

And to the front look forth ; 
This world is not completely wrong — 

Press on and test thy worth." 

Some persons seem to enjoy being miser- 
able. At least, they make far more of life's 
discomforts than of its pleasant things. They 
say very little about their mercies, but a great 
deal about their miseries. When you meet 
them some bright morning, and ask, " How 
are you to-day ? n you will have to listen to a 
long recital of personal ills ; and you will es- 
cape well if you are not favored also with a 
dismal catalogue of the distresses and suffer- 
ings of all the members of your friend's family. 

214 



TALKING OF ONE'S AILMENTS. 21$ 

You learn by and by, if you are a busy per- 
son, not to make inquiries which will lead to 
such extended confessions of wretchedness. 

These people seem to think there is some 
sort of merit in having ailments or afflictions 
to speak of to others. It appears to them to 
be an altogether undesirable and unworthy 
state to be in, when they can say they are 
very well, with nothing to complain of. They 
appear to be happy only when something is 
wrong with them, so that they can make ap- 
peal to the sympathy of their friends. 

What is the real secret of the commonness, 
the almost universality, of this habit of mind ? 
For it must be confessed that there are com- 
paratively few persons with whom one meets 
who are not addicted to this unwholesome 
way of talking about their ills and ailments, 
real or imaginary. What is the motive for 
it ? Why does it appear to give so much 
pleasure ? Is it prompted by an unhealthy 
craving for sympathy ? One who is always 
well, and who never complains, is not commis- 
erated. Nobody says, " How pale you look ! 



2l6 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

I am very sorry you are such a sufferer ; " 
and many persons seem to find great comfort 
in being pitied in this way. They would 
rather have others speak to them of their ail- 
ments than of their fine health. 

But the best that can be said about such a 
craving is that it is miserably unwholesome. 
It is exaggerated selfishness, too, which takes 
delight in burdening others with the recital 
of all one's little bodily pains or discomforts 
— how many hours one lay awake last night, 
what a hard cough one has, how one's head 
ached all the morning, how one suffers from 
rheumatism or neuralgia, how one's digestion 
has been bad for a week, and the endless cata- 
logue of ills to which flesh is heir. Suppose 
you had a restless night, or did cough for 
hours, or were nervous ; or suppose you have 
pains in your back, or in your head, or have 
a heavy cold, — why must you go over all the 
details of your wretchedness in talking with 
any one you can get to listen to the recital ? 
What good comes of speaking about these un- 
pleasant things ? 



TALKING OF ONE'S AILMENTS. 21 J 

The fact is, that people do not like to hear 
such unwholesome complaining unless they are 
given to the same morbid habit themselves, 
and can get you to listen sympathetically to 
their story, which they will probably try to 
make more touching than yours. There really 
is no virtue in being miserable ; it is far better 
to be well and strong. Then, even if one has 
actual infirmities, aches, or disorders of any 
kind, one has no right to display them before 
others ; one would far better endure the dis- 
comfort silently, and be sweet, brave, and 
cheerful in the presence of one's friends and 
neighbors. 

It is immeasurably better to talk about the 
ten thousand comforts, blessings, and pleas- 
ures of one's life, than about the few pains 
and miseries. It is better for one's self ; for 
we are building character out of our habits, 
and we would better build into our life the 
gold and silver and precious stones of good 
cheer, than the wood, hay, and stubble of 
miserable morbidity. It is better, too, for the 
world ; for it has real troubles enough of its 



2l8 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

own, and needs far more our songs than our 
sorrows. 

A writer gives this incident, which is in the 
line of what has been written : The principal 
of a girls' school once administered an effec- 
tive rebuke to a pupil who was always com- 
plaining of her ailments. This student came 
to school one morning whining about a " dread- 
ful cold." The teacher said cheerfully, "Oh, 
I'm so glad you have one ! " Naturally the 
girl was astonished ; but the wise woman con- 
tinued, " Why shouldn't I be glad ? You are 
always doing something to make yourself ill ; 
so of course you must enjoy it, and I am happy 
to have you pleased." 

This stinging sarcasm opened the girl's eyes 
to the knowledge that she herself was responsi- 
ble, to a large extent, for her own bodily con- 
ditions, and that it was a reflection upon her 
intelligence, as well as her conscience, thus to 
ignore the laws of her physical being. No 
sane person ever points with pride to the exist- 
ence in himself of mental defects arising from 
neglect of intellectual culture. Yet it is noth- 



TALKING OF ONE'S AILMENTS. 2ig 

ing uncommon for one to pose as an object of 
sympathy when ill, from failure to exercise 
common sense in matters of simple hygiene. 
Moreover, it is an offence against good breed- 
ing to parade one's distempers before others. 

Emerson says on this same subject: " If you 
have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you 
have a headache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or 
thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by all the an- 
gels, to hold your peace." 

There is a better way — it is to seal one's 
lips resolutely upon all words of complaining 
about one's self, all talking about one's discom- 
forts or ailments. Nobody is really interested 
in such recital, no one enjoys listening to it. 
Even those who patiently hear your lugubrious 
tale do so only out of amiable courtesy. Speak 
only of the bright and cheerful things in your 
life. Tell others of your thousand mercies, and 
not of your one or two miseries. Find the 
pleasant things, and talk of these, rather than 
of the painful things. You have no right to 
add to the world's disquietude by pouring out 
your story of woes, real or fancied. Give out 



220 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

cheer and gladness instead, and breathe out 
song. 

It was said of a beautiful Christian woman, 
beside her coffin, that wherever she went the 
air was sweeter after she had gone by. It is 
such an influence we should all seek to leave 
behind us wherever we go. To do this we 
must train ourselves to consume our own self- 
ishness, to repress our discontents, to bear in 
silence the trials and sufferings of our life, to 
endure in sweet patience the things that are 
disagreeable and unpleasant, and to give out 
to others and to the world only sweetness and 
light, however keen our own pain or heavy our 
burden. 

11 By the cynic, the sad, the fallen, 

Who had no strength for the strife, 
The world's highway is cumbered to-day ; 

They make up the item of life. 
But the virtue that conquers passion, 

And the sorrow that hides in a smile, 
It is these that are worth the homage of earth ; 

For we find them but once in a while/ ' 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN. 

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, 
In your thoughts the brooklets flow, 

But in mine is the wind of autumn 
And the first fall of the snow. 



Come to me, O ye children, 

And whisper in my ear 
What the birds and the winds are singing 

In your sunny atmosphere. 

Longfellow. 

Many sermons are preached and books writ- 
ten on the responsibility of parents for their 
children, — for their education and training, for 
their mental, moral, spiritual, and material out- 
fitting for life. Parents are exhorted to live 
for their children. They are reminded that 
they may hurt their children's lives and mar 
their future, and by their unfaithfulness fore- 
doom them to failure. 

221 



222 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

No doubt this phase of responsibility is very 
important. There is a lame man going about 
the streets these days, walking on crutches, — 
an old man now, who has always walked on 
crutches, and whose life has been one of piti- 
ful suffering, and burdensomeness both to him- 
self and others, because more than sixty years 
ago a mother stumbled with her baby in her 
arms. There are people, many of them, going 
through life maimed or hurt in some way, in 
body, mind, or spirit, through the stumbling 
or fault of their parents. Society is bearing 
the burdens continually of the wrongdoings, 
the crimes, the unfaithfulness, the neglect, the 
false teaching, of past generations. We have 
a share in making the success of the lives of 
those who will come after us. We may be 
the cause of the failure of our children. We 
may rob them of the goodly inheritance which 
we ought to transmit to them. We may blot 
their fair names by acts of shame which we 
commit, and foredoom them to reproach. We 
may give them a heritage of dishonor instead 
of a heritage of honor. Much may be said 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN. 22$ 

of the responsibility of parents for the success 
and the blessing of their children. 

But there is another responsibility, — that of 
children for their parents. Bible incident is 
always good framework, for it is more than il- 
lustration. The Lord said of Abraham, " Abra- 
ham shall surely become a great and mighty 
nation, and all the nations of the earth shall 
be blessed in him." That was God's plan for 
Abraham's life. Then the Lord told how this 
greatness should be achieved, how this uni- 
versal blessing of the nations should come 
about: "For I have known him," — that is, I 
have chosen him, called him, and blessed him, 
— " to the end that he may command his 
children and his household after him, that they 
may keep the way of the Lord, to do justice 
and judgment." 

Thus far it is Abraham's part and respon- 
sibility that we see. He, himself, could not, 
personally, with his own life, touch all nations 
of future ages, to bless them ; but he could 
command his children, and train them in the 
way of the Lord, and thus transmit through 



224 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

them the blessing to all the nations of the 
future. If Abraham had failed in his part as 
a father, failed in his teaching, failed in his 
example, the fault would have been his, and 
his the responsibility for the failure of God's 
purpose of blessing for the nations. 

There is something almost startling in the 
truth that God needs and depends upon our 
faithfulness in carrying on his work in this 
world, and in blessing, helping, and saving 
others. We say, "Surely God does not need 
me in doing anything he desires to have done. 
He is omnipotent, and can do whatsoever he 
pleases, and never need wait for me." That 
is true in a sense ; certainly nothing is impos- 
sible to God. Yet in his work among men in 
this world God chooses to use human instru- 
ments. The old violin-maker said that God 
could not make man's best work without best 
men to help him, — could not make Stradi- 
vari's violins without Stradivari ; and that if 
his hand should slack he would rob God, leav- 
ing a blank where there should have been 
good violins. God needed and depended on 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN, 22$ 

Abraham's faithfulness in the training of his 
household, in order to send a blessing to the 
nations. Had Abraham failed, there would 
have been a blank instead of a blessing, and 
the responsibility would have been his. 

But the responsibility did not end with 
Abraham. He should train his children to do 
justice and judgment, "to the end that the 
Lord may bring upon Abraham that which 
he had spoken of him." That is, in order 
that the promised blessings might be realized, 
Abraham's children and descendants must keep 
the way of the Lord. They were responsible 
for the final success of their father's life. 
After all his faithfulness the good work of 
Abraham would come to nothing unless they 
kept the way of the Lord, living out his teach- 
ings. Each generation in turn would be re- 
sponsible for guarding and passing on the 
heritage of promise and blessing received from 
its predecessors. The reach of Abraham's 
covenant was to remotest ages. A break in 
fidelity anywhere along the centuries would 
be a marring of the covenant blessing. The 



226 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

divine purpose could be fulfilled only by un- 
broken faithfulness through the generations. 
Abraham's children were responsible for the 
final and complete carrying out of their fath- 
er's mission in the world. 

The same is true in every household. The 
legacy which a parent transmits to a child is a 
legacy of unfinished work. It is something to 
guard, to use, to augment, to pass on to the 
next generation. It is not merely something 
to live upon, to enjoy, to consume, to do with 
as we will ; it is a sacred trust, to impair which 
would be a sin, a wrong to the honor of him 
who gave it in charge, and to those for whom 
it is to be kept. Many a child wrecks and 
destroys all the good that in a long lifetime 
a godly parent has wrought in the world. A 
man by industry, diligence, economy, and hon- 
esty gathers a fortune. Every dollar of it 
represents toil and self-denial. At his death 
it passes into the hands of his children. They 
are responsible for the continuance of the 
good life, the thrift, and the prosperity of their 
father. He only began a career which it is 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN. 227 

theirs to carry forward into still larger success. 
The money which comes into their hands is 
not theirs to use in any selfish way ; it is a 
sacred trust for which they are responsible. 

A man by true living wins for himself a 
name of honor among men. His conduct is 
exemplary. He conducts his business affairs 
on principles of truth, integrity, and upright- 
ness. He is broad-minded and liberal. His 
hand dispenses kindness and charity. He be- 
comes a blessing to a whole community. His 
influence reaches far, and the fragrance of 
his good name breathes everywhere. Then his 
work ends, and he goes away, leaving his 
goodly heritage of honor to his children. 
They are responsible for the perpetuation of 
the life which he has begun. He has started 
blessings in the world which it is theirs to 
continue. They cannot, without disloyalty to 
their father, lower the tone of the noble living 
which marked his course. They cannot, with- 
out dishonoring him, deviate from the lofty 
principles which characterized his career. The 
heritage of his good name is theirs to preserve 



228 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

unsullied. They are responsible for the con- 
tinuance in the community of the good work 
and the wholesome influence which he started. 
If they fail to maintain in their own life the 
beauty, the truth, the worth, the purity, the 
unselfishness, and the usefulness of their 
father, they are not true to the sacred trust 
which he has committed to them. 

The lesson has wide application. Children 
hold the inheritance they receive from their 
father to be guarded and then transmitted. 
They should make their life worthy of him, 
so that, if he were to come back any day to the 
old walks, they would not be ashamed to meet 
him. They are builders on the walls whose 
foundation he laid in sacrifice and toil ; and 
they must build reverently and with conscien- 
tious care, that the work he began may not 
be marred, but may be carried upward in 
graceful beauty. 

It is an interesting thought that in God's 
great plan each one of us has but his own 
little portion to do. No one finishes anything. 
Work comes unfinished into our hands from 



THE RESPONSIBILITY OF CHILDREN. 22() 

those who have gone before us. They did 
their part on it, and we in turn are to do our 
part, and then give way to others who will do 
their fragment. If we fail in diligence or in 
faithfulness we mar the work of God, and leave 
a blank where our part should have been done. 
This truth shows us how serious life is, and 
what a blemish unfit work leaves in God's uni- 
verse. If, however, we are true to our duty, 
conscientious, doing always our best, doing 
that which is given to us to do, we shall assure 
the success of those who have gone before 
us, and shall receive the reward of those who 
are faithful. 

" Man's life is but a working day, 

Whose tasks are set aright : 
A time to work, a time to pray, 

And then a quiet night ; 
And then — please God ! — a quiet night, 
Where palms are green and robes are white ; 
A long-drawn breath, a balm for sorrow, 
And all things lovely on the morrow.' ' 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE METHOD OP GRACE. 

God lays a little on us every day, 

And never, I believe, on all the way 

Will burdens bear so deep, 

Or pathways lie so threatening and so steep, 

But we can go, if by God's power 

We only bear the burden of the hour. 

George Klingle. 

There is a phrase in one of the Gospels, re- 
ferring to Christ, which is very suggestive. 
The whole verse reads : " Of his fulness have 
all we received, and grace for grace." The 
words " grace for grace " are very suggestive. 
They describe the manner in which the divine 
fulness is given out. The meaning is, grace 
instead of grace, one grace coming in the place 
of another when the first has done its work. 

One suggestion is that even grace has its 
day, and dies. The blessing of one grace is 

230 



THE METHOD OF GRACE. 23 1 

exhausted, and has to be replaced by the bless- 
ing of another. The days are full of transient 
graces, tender, beautiful, enriching, but passing 
with the day. We cannot keep them to give 
us cheer, comfort, or help, on other days. You 
cannot feed to-day on yesterday's bread ; it was 
consumed in imparting its nutriment. Yester- 
day's fire will not warm your house to-day ; 
its warmth was exhausted in giving out the 
heat which then made so much comfort for 
you. The light from your lamp which filled 
your room with cheer last night will not give 
you brightness again to-night. 

In spiritual things, too, it is not otherwise. 
You kneel in your morning prayer, and as you 
commune with God there flow into your soul 
rich blessings of strength and peace. You 
come from your closet with a holy light on 
your face, and a new secret of gladness in your 
heart. All the day the strength of that com- 
muning will be with you. But you cannot go 
another day on that same strength. It did its 
work, and passed away. 

The lesson of " grace for grace," however, 



232 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

is that one grace is given instead of another. 
We cannot live to-day on the strength of yes- 
terday's food, — each day has a portion of its 
own. Yesterday's sunshine will not light the 
earth to-day, but there is other sunshine ready 
each new morning. When you were in sorrow 
a while ago, God came to you and comforted 
you in wonderful ways — through his promises, 
or through a human friend who brought you 
blessing, or through a book whose words were 
like a heavenly lamp pouring its light upon 
your darkness. When a new sorrow comes, 
that old comfort cannot be used again ; but 
you will have other comfort for your new sor- 
row, comfort in place of the comfort which 
is past. No grace received from God is ever 
the last. The time will never come to any 
child of God when a grace will fade out, and 
no other one be ready to take its place. 

It is not the same grace that is given al- 
ways, regardless of the person's need, — the 
same to the little child and to the old man ; 
the same to the mother nursing her baby, and 
the mother sitting beside her baby's coffin. 



THE METHOD OF GRACE. 233 

" As thy days, so shall thy strength be," runs 
the old promise, — not the same degree of 
strength for the day of gladness and the day 
of sadness, but strength suited to the particu- 
lar day's experience. The boy in school needs 
grace to help him to be true, brave, and manly; 
but he does not need the same grace that he 
will need when, a little later, as a man, he 
stands amid life's battles, facing grave respon- 
sibilities and carrying heavy burdens. The 
young girl in the summer of her joy needs 
grace that she may live beautifully and sweetly, 
keeping herself unspotted from the world, mak- 
ing wise choices, and growing into whatsoever 
things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure ; 
but she does not need just the same grace that 
she will require years hence, when her hands 
are full of hard tasks, when her thoughts are 
occupied with serious questions, or when her 
heart is breaking with sorrow. 

It is the law of grace that it is given accord- 
ing to the hour's need. It is not always the 
same, not the same to all persons, not the same 
to any two, not the same to any one person 



234 THE J° y 0F SERVICE. 

two days in succession. It is given always ac- 
cording to the need of the moment. Grace is 
given to each person with wise discrimination, 
what is best for each at the time. 

Life has hard points for every one. There 
are struggles which must be made. Not all 
battle-fields are marked on the world's maps ; 
there are sore battles in human hearts. There 
are sorrows too ; no life escapes them. There 
are sicknesses which call us aside from active 
duty, and bid us rest a while. For each of 
these changing experiences there is grace 
ready. The same grace in every instance 
would not do. The grace that will help you 
when you are strong and busy in life's active 
duties would not meet your need when you 
are shut up in a sick-room. Then it is the 
grace of patience you require instead of the 
grace of energy; and this God will give. 

This also must be noted — that grace need 
not be expected out of season. One cause of 
much anxiety in good persons is the fear that 
they will not be able to meet certain experi- 
ences which they foresee, or imagine they 



THE METHOD OF GRACE. 235 

foresee. You, in the enjoyment of health, 
see a friend in sickness, who is wondrously 
patient, suffering quietly, even joyfully, with 
a heart full of song. You say, " I could not 
meet sickness as my friend does. I could not 
bear pain so patiently and sweetly. I could 
not sing if I were suffering so." 

Of course you do not to-day have the par- 
ticular grace your friend has. With the grace 
you are now receiving you might not be able 
to endure sickness patiently. Your present 
grace is grace for earnest, active life, for liv- 
ing sweetly amid trial and care, for doing well 
life's common duties. It would be a waste of 
divine grace for God to give you now strength 
to meet anguish or sorrow, when you have 
neither anguish nor sorrow to endure. If by 
and by God shall lead you into a chamber of 
suffering, then you may expect grace to meet 
the new experiences. 

A mother reads the story of some other 
mother whose little child was taken up to 
God. This mother in her great sorrow did 
not rebel, but laid her darling in Christ's arms 



236 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

just as sweetly as if she were only bringing 
it to him for his blessing. "I could not do 
that," says this mother of the happy, living 
child. " I have not grace enough to give up 
my child, even to Christ, as my friend gave 
up hers." 

But why should she have this grace to-day, 
when her child is in health ? Her duty for 
it now is not laying it in Christ's arms in 
death, and then going on, bereft and lonely, 
yet rejoicing, but rather training it for Christ; 
and for this duty of Christian motherhood she 
will receive the needed grace if she seeks it. 
Then if, some painful day, God asks her to 
let her child be taken away to heaven, she will 
receive grace to give it up to him, and to walk 
on in sweet faith without its companionship. 

There can be no blessing in such forebod- 
ing anxiety. Nothing good can come of it. 
It will not prepare the heart for suffering, if 
it comes, to go forward now in fear and dread. 
No grace is promised either for imaginary or 
anticipated troubles. Our duty is to accept 
each day the actual experiences of the day, 



THE METHOD OF GRACE. 237 

and for these we shall always receive strength. 
Then if to-morrow brings new needs, it will 
bring with them new grace. 

"What if to-morrow's cares were here, 

Without its rest? 
Rather would I unlock the day, 
And, as the hours swing open, say, 

'Thy will is best. ,, ' 

Many persons distress themselves because 
they do not have the consciousness of vic- 
tory over death long before they meet death. 
They say they could not die in peace as this 
or that saint died. This perplexes them. 
They think they ought to be able to say the 
dying believer's words of confidence now, just 
as if they were entering the valley. But it 
is not in this way that God gives grace. He 
gives what we need for the present hour. 
While we are well and strong, we require, 
not dying grace, but grace to live well — 
thoughtful love to make us gentle and kindly 
in life's relations, strength to be faithful in 
duty and struggle ; and this grace we shall 
receive, if we seek it. 



238 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

We have no promise of dying grace while 
we are in the midst of healthful, active life. 
Of what use would such grace be to us then ? 
It would not fit us for the work we have to 
do, and the battles we have to fight. Not 
submission, laying down our tasks, folding our 
arms, saying farewell to our friends — not 
these are our duties now, but courage, energy, 
loyal friendship, diligence in business, and 
faithfulness in witnessing. By and by, when 
our work is done, and our time to fall asleep 
has come, we shall receive dying grace in 
place of grace for living, and shall meet death 
without fear. 

There is a word which warns us against 
receiving the grace of God in vain. We re- 
ceive it in vain when we make nothing of it ; 
when we allow it to die in our heart, and yield 
no strength ; when we take God's comfort, and 
are not comforted by it ; when we hear God's 
calls, and do not obey them ; when we feel the 
strivings of the Spirit, and do not submit to 

them ; when the still small voice whispers its 

• 
divine inspirations in our soul, and we pay no 



THE METHOD OF GRACE. 239 

heed. We receive grace not in vain when it 
sinks into our heart, like the dew into the 
bosom of the thirsty rose, and revives our 
life ; when we accept the divine consolations, 
and are comforted ; when we take the strength 
of God into our life, and grow strong. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE OTHER DAYS. 

" Never a day is given 

But it tones the after years, 
And it carries up to heaven 
Its sunshine or its tears ; 
While the to-morrows stand and wait — 
The silent mutes by the outer gate." 

Anybody can be a Christian on Sunday. It 
is not hard to have holy thoughts and heaven- 
ward aspirations and longings for communion 
with God, while we are amid devout worship- 
pers whose hearts are all aflame with love for 
Christ. It is not hard to be sweet-tempered 
and to feel kindly and unselfish when we are 
sitting in the church, listening to a good ser- 
mon, joining in an inspiring hymn, or bowing 
in prayer. It ought not to be hard for us to 
be good amid the holy influences which belong 
to the holy day. 

240 



THE OTHER DAYS. 24 1 

But it is the other days that test our life, 
the days which come between the Sundays. 
Then we have to go out among people, and 
people are not always good. Some of them 
are selfish, some are worldly, some antagonize 
us, some irritate us. It is not so easy to keep 
our heart gentle and our speech kindly in these 
experiences. We find the world's atmosphere 
different altogether from that of the church or 
that of the sheltered home. 

Then, on the other days we have to bear 
many burdens which we lay off on Sunday. 
As soon as the Sabbath is over, we must take 
up again the task-work of the week-days. We 
must carry on our regular occupation, and 
sometimes the work is hard. Our tasks irk 
us. The routine wears us out. It is the same 
thing over and over again for six days, begin- 
ning every morning, toiling all day, coming 
home tired at night. 

Then, sometimes the work does not succeed 
— we have many failures. We find also com- 
petition and rivalry. Other people contest 
every inch of the ground with us. If we are 



242 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

in business, the competition is usually very 
sharp and keen. Sometimes we meet with 
meanness and dishonesty, too, in those who 
are our rivals. They are not always willing to 
apply the Golden Rule to their business meth- 
ods. All this makes it hard for us to meet the 
life of the other days. It is not easy for us 
to keep cheerful in spirit, and to maintain 
gentle feelings, as we move through these try- 
ing experiences. 

The other days also bring to us, to appeal 
to our human nature, forms of amusement and 
pleasure which do not usually tempt us on 
Sunday. Most of us are in a measure shut 
away from the world on the Lord's Day. Our 
Christian habits are our protection. We spend 
the day in religious services, and in duties of 
love which fill hand and heart. We scarcely 
think of the great world outside, with its 
throbbing life and its sin and sorrow. Our 
environment for the day is so kindly, so full 
of spiritual help, so friendly to devotion, so 
warm and congenial, as almost to make us 
forget that we are in a world where temptation 



THE OTHER DAYS. 243 

assails, where evil rules. But as we go out 
on Monday, we find ourselves suddenly in 
contact with all manner of worldly influences. 
The very atmosphere is antagonistic to spirit- 
uality. It is as if we had passed suddenly 
from a tropical summer into arctic winter. It 
is not easy to live the holy life of a Christian 
amid the scenes and experiences of the week- 
days. 

But a Christian must be a Christian all 
the days. It is not enough to be in the Spirit 
on the Lord's day — we must be in the Spirit 
on the other days too. We are to keep our- 
selves in the love of God all the week. Holi- 
ness does not consist merely in devout feelings 
toward God, and reverent worship in God's 
house. We are to be Christians in our school 
life, in our business, in our amusements, in 
our friendships. We are to carry out the prin- 
ciples of Christianity in our associations with 
the world. Our hands are God's, and can be 
used fitly only in doing God's work on any day. 
Our feet are God's, and may be employed 
only in walking in good ways, the ways of the 



244 THE JOY OF SERVICE, 

divine commandments, whether it be Sunday 
or Monday. Our lips are God's, and should 
speak only words that honor God, and do good, 
whether it be in religious conversation, or in 
the talk of the parlor or the place of business. 

It is our week-day life, under the stress and 
strain of temptation, far more than our Sun- 
day life, under the gentle warmth of favoring 
conditions, that really tests our religion. Not 
how well we sing and pray, nor how devoutly 
we worship in church ; but how well we live 
out in the stress of affairs, how loyally we do 
God's will, how faithfully we carry out the 
principles of our religion in our conduct, — 
these are the things that tell what manner 
of Christians we are. 

The influence of the Sabbath, like a precious 
perfume, should pervade all the days of the 
week. Its spirit of holiness and reverence 
should flow down into all the paths of the 
other days. Its voices of hope and joy should 
become inspirations in all our cares and toils 
in the outside world. Its teaching should be 
the guide of hand and foot in the midst of 



THE OTHER DAYS. 245 

all trial and temptation. Its words of comfort 
should be as lamps shining in the sick-room 
and in the chambers of sorrow. Its visions 
of spiritual beauty should be translated into 
reality in conduct, disposition, and character. 
A well-spent Sabbath is an excellent prepa- 
ration for a week amid cares and struggles. 
There is blessing in the Sabbath rest. We 
cannot go on forever ; we must pause here 
and there to renew our strength. 

" Birds cannot always sing; 

Silence at times they ask, to nurse spent feeling, 
To see some new, bright thing, 

Ere a fresh burst of song, fresh joy revealing. 

Flowers cannot always blow ; 

Some Sabbath rest they need of silent winter, 
Ere from its sheath below 

Shoots up a small green blade, brown earth to splinter. 

Tongues cannot always speak ; 

O God ! in this loud world of noise and clatter, 
Save us this once a week, 

To let the sown seed grow, not always scatter." 

True Sabbath rest, however, is not merely 
the cessation of all effort, the dropping of 



246 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

all work. As far as possible we should seek 
to be freed from the common tasks of the 
other days. Happy is he who can leave be- 
hind him, on Saturday night, all his week-day 
affairs, to enjoy a Sabbath in heavenly places, 
as it were, engaged with thoughts and occu- 
pations altogether different from those of the 
busy week. This even alone gives rest. 

As for the Sabbath itself, it should be a 
day for the uplifting of the whole life. A 
tourist among the Alps tells of climbing one 
of the mountains in a dense and dripping 
mist, until at length he passed through the 
clouds, and stood on a lofty peak in the clear 
sunlight. Beneath him lay the fog, like a 
waveless sea of white vapor; and, as he lis- 
tened, he could hear the sounds of labor, the 
lowing of the cattle, and the peals of the vil- 
lage bells, coming up from the vales below. 
As he stood there, he saw a bird fly up out 
of the mists, soar about for a little while, 
and then dart down again and disappear. 
What those moments of sunshine were to the 
bird, coming up out of the cloud, the Sab- 



THE OTHER DAYS. 2tf 

bath should be to us. During week-days we 
live down in the low vales of life, amid the 
mists. Life is not easy for us ; it is full of 
struggle and burden-bearing. The Sabbath 
comes ; and we fly up out of the low climes 
of care, toil, and tears, and spend one day in 
the pure, sweet air of God's love and peace. 
There we have new visions of beauty. We get 
near to the heart of Christ, into the warmth 
of his love. We come into the goodly fellow- 
ship of Christian people, and get fresh inspi- 
ration from the contact. 

Thus we are lifted up for one day out of 
the atmosphere of earthliness into a region 
of peace, calm, and quiet. We see all things 
more plainly in the unclouded sky; and we 
are prepared to begin another week with new 
views of duty, under the influence of fresh 
motives, and with our life fountains refilled. 
Thus the Sabbath rest prepares us for the 
work and the struggle of the other days. We 
learn new lessons, which we are to live out in 
the common experience of the life before us. 
We see the patterns of heavenly things as we 



248 THE JOY OF SERVICE. 

read our Bible, and bow before God in prayer ; 
and we are to go down from the holy mount 
to weave the fashion of these patterns into 
the fabric of our character. We should be 
better, truer-souled, and richer-hearted all the 
week because of the Sabbath inspirations. 
We should carry the holy impressions, the 
sacred influences, in our heart as we go out 
into the world, singing the songs of heaven 
amid earth's clatter and noise. True Sabbath- 
keeping makes us ready for true week-day 
living. 

" There are, in this loud, stunning tide 

Of human care and crime, 
With whom the melodies abide 

Of th' everlasting chime — 
Who carry music in their heart, 
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, 
Plying their daily task with busier feet 
Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat." 






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